IPL: CSK CEO Rubbishes Reports Of Asking BCCI To Allow MS Dhoni As An Uncapped Player
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) CEO Kasi Viswanathan has denied speculations that the franchise sought for a status alteration from MS Dhoni to an uncapped player in order to be retained by BCCI for IPL 2021. The BCCI had also done away with a policy allowing teams to retain retired international players as uncapped for the 2021 season, but that appears likely to return.
There has been reports in the media that CSK were considering speaking to BCCI about treating MS Dhoni as an uncapped player. But Viswanathan denied this in an interview with the Times of India.
This is not on my knowledge. We have not been approached in this way. While the BCCI itself stated that they will be thinking about reintroducing the ‘uncapped player rule,’ there has been no official word on it yet. The rules and regulations will be framed by the BCCI,” Viswanathan added.
Re-introduction of this rule will also allow CSK to rope in MS Dhoni as an uncapped player which can be utilised by the team for retaining a core group of capped players. CSK had retained Dhoni for ₹12 crore in the 2022 IPL auction. Earlier, an uncapped player could be retained for ₹4 crore and this kept Dhoni to play without a big influence on CSK’s salary purse.
In front of the 2024 IPL season, Dhoni surrendered his captaincy for CSK to Ruturaj Gaikwad. Captaincy gone he may have, but Dhoni scored 161 runs at a strike rate of 220.55 for the season; nearly all of them towards the death(scores -8*,27(20),47*(37)).
In a recent event at Hyderabad, MS Dhoni expressed his views on IPL future by saying that would wait until the BCCI came up with their decision of player retention rules before making any final calls.
“Decisions don’t have to be made this moment. Let’s wait and watch what BCCI comes up with respect to player retention. At this point, all of the power and control is not in our hands. I will decide what needs to be done once the SOPs and rules are in place for this,” said Dhoni.
At present, CSK and MS Dhoni will be waiting for BCCI to officially state the terms of rules and regulations in the coming IPL season. Whether the return of that ‘uncapped player rule’ is something we will see in due course, however still seems unclear until an official announcement has been made by Cricket Ireland.