'No CSK without MS Dhoni' - N Srinivasan lavishes huge praise on Yellow Army's skipper post IPL 2021 win

The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) won their fourth IPL championship in the recently-concluded IPL 2021 edition's second and final leg, played in the UAE. Featuring in their 9th IPL final, MS Dhoni & Co. beat Eoin Morgan-led Kolkata Knight Riders by 27 runs to clinch their fourth IPL trophy and moved past their disastrous 2020 campaign, where they ended at the seventh spot and missed out on the playoffs spot for the first time in the tournament-history.

CSK ended the first leg, in India, with five wins from seven encounters and were the second-best side in the points table when Covid-19 crisis postponed the tournament in early May. In the final leg in the UAE, Dhoni & Co. resumed in a similar manner before they lost three back-to-back games after ensuring their playoffs berth. Come the knockouts, Dhoni-led Yellow Army brought their A-game, beating table-toppers Delhi Capitals (DC) in Qualifier 2, and KKR in the summit clash. 

While Dhoni didn't have a memorable run with the bat, he excelled as a keeper and captain. In Qualifier 1, Dhoni performed his best with the bat courtesy a 6-ball 18* to take CSK to the final. Commenting on CSK's memorable triumph, the former BCCI President N Srinivasan praised his franchise's talismanic captain and told reporters during a brief interaction after visiting Lord Venkatachalapathy temple in Chennai with the IPL trophy, "It was a remarkable win", adding that it “put Chennai on top of the world. Dhoni is part and parcel of CSK, Chennai and Tamil Nadu. There is no CSK without Dhoni and there is no Dhoni without CSK."

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While Dhoni remained silent on his IPL future, the CSK franchise has maintained that the 40-year-old legendary captain's future will depend upon the retention policy, ahead of the mega auction later this year for IPL 2022. "The rules of retention are not clear yet...We are not sure about the number of retentions that will be allowed. And a call on that will be made once the rules are known," the official told PTI when asked about the possibility of using a retention card to retain the Dhoni.

It will be interesting to see if Dhoni, who has 4,746 runs and 165 dismissals in IPL, will return as a player for CSK or don a new role for the franchise in IPL 2022.