IPL 2018: MS Dhoni hints at IPL retirement

Chennai Super Kings registered a comprehensive win against Kings XI Punjab in their last league game of this season of the Indian Premier League. After suffering a defeat against Delhi Daredevils a few days back, this was the right opportunity for CSK to fix the issues they were facing before going ahead into the playoffs. But MS Dhoni drops a hint about when he will retire from Chennai Super Kings and IPL.

A comfortable win for CSK in the end with a few funky and nifty captaincy moves from Dhoni. They would have been happier to finish at the top of the league standings but still a Top 2 finish in their comeback season would delight their fans. To top it off Dhoni finished it off in style with a six. Off to the playoffs then!

CSK have finished in the top-4 in the points table in each of the nine seasons that they have been part of IPL - the only team to do so. Suresh Raina has scored 300-plus runs in each of the 11 IPL seasons - the only player to do so.

When CSK management trusted the same core group in IPL 2018 auction, some critics said that the team is assembling a bunch of "senior" players. While they have proven everyone wrong with their outing MS Dhoni in his post-match interview hinted that this bandwagon of players including himself might be staring at the end of their careers.

“Owners have been brilliant. We have a set of people who are close to the players. They have a history of understanding the game. That makes the job easy for the captain. Also if you don’t have a good team, it becomes difficult. We kept adding players, and they kept performing,” MS Dhoni remarked after the win.

Adding further on the same note, Dhoni remarked that the actual challenge for the Chennai Super Kings would arrive in a couple of years. That will be the time when senior players like him will not fit into the scheme of things for the shortest format of the game. Well, was that a subtle hint that Dhoni has set a time frame of two years for himself in the IPL?

“The big shift will be after two years, where most of these players won’t be there. Maybe they won’t be fit for the shortest format. Looking at ten years, it has been perfect for us,” he added further on the same note.