He will answer you directly: Chennai Super Kings CEO Kasi Viswanathan on MS Dhoni’s future

With the Indian Premier League season a few months away, the future of Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is again on everyone’s lips with questions on if this will be his final season hanging above the franchise. CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan, however, chose to remain tightlipped about all the speculations and left it to his captain to decide.

“That I do not know. See, as far as the captain is concerned, he will answer you directly. He does not tell us what he is going to do,” he said on of the launch of Junior Super Kings event in Chennai on Saturday.

Talking about the fitness of Dhoni, the CEO said, “He is doing well now. He has started his rehab. He started working in the gym. And, probably in another 10 days he’ll start working in the nets also.”

After guiding Chennai Super Kings to their 5th IPL trophy earlier this year, Dhoni had successfully undergone a left knee surgery in a Mumbai hospital in June.

Viswanathan also said that CSK’s preparations will start in Chennai in the first weerk of March next year. “We are planning for a camp somewhere by the first week of March. The IPL season is likely to start by 22nd of March. So, we will have our first camp by the first week in Chennai,” he said.

Speaking about if there was a chance of the IPL getting spilt between some other country and India the next year due to the Lok Sabha elections, the CSK CEO hinted that might be unlikely.

“I have no idea. They have not informed us anything about split schedule. What they have said is that we should be prepared to play IPL in India, this is what we got to hear from them during the auction,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the recently concluded IPL auction CSK snapped up 6 players with Shardul Thakur (Rs 4 crore), Rachin Ravindra (Rs 1.8 crore), Daryl Mitchell (Rs 14 crore), Sameer Rizvi (Rs 8.4 crore), Mustafizur Rahman (Rs 2 crore) and Avanish Rao Aravelly (Rs 20 lakh) joining the yellow brigade.

“I would say we pretty much got all of our targets. We were planning for Daryl Mitchell. We thought Mustafizur Rahman would be a good bet at our Chepauk wicket, with the side boundary. These were our thoughts but we were not sure whether we would be able get them. Luckily, it turned out to be a good auction for us this time,” Viswanathan said.

Talking about the emerging talent of Rizvi, the CEO said he was one to look out for in the future. “Sameer Rizvi was a targeted player for many of the franchises. We were probably a bit lucky in getting Rizvi. Basically, if you look at it, we are trying to get a replacement for Ambati Rayudu. According to us, we didn’t have enough players with that kind of experience to bid for any of them. So, we thought it was better to go in for a youngster who has the promise. I’m not saying this just because we have picked him, but he is going to be the next best. In fact the opportunity is there for that. Last year we got Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu and Rajvardhan Hangargekar. So, we are trying to build the team for the future also, which will help us in the longer run,” he said.

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