MS Dhoni may hand over CSK captaincy to Faf du Plessis, says Sanjay Bangar

Former India all-rounder Sanjay Bangar feels MS Dhoni might handover Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) captaincy to Faf du Plessis.

This year, for the first time in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL), CSK failed to qualify for the playoffs. The three-time champions finished sixth in the league with six wins from 14 games.

The 39-year-old Dhoni, who retired from international cricket on August 15, said he would return to play for CSK in IPL 2021., dismissing talk of his retiring from IPL too.

But he also said that it was time to hand over the reins of the team to someone else, and since then, speculation has been rife

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Speaking on Star Sports’ Cricket Connected show, former India batting coach Bangar said, “As far as I know, MS Dhoni might have thought after 2011 if he should be continuing to captain the Indian team but he knew that India had quite a few tough encounters after that, we had to go and play in England and Australia and at that time there was no captaincy candidate ready, so he only handled that burden and at the right time he handed over the captaincy to Virat Kohli and he also played after that.”

“So as far as I can understand, I feel that MS Dhoni may not be the captain next year and may play as a player and give the captaincy at this stage to Faf du Plessis for the transition to happen under Faf du Plessis,” Bangar added.

According to Bangar, CSK don’t have any other captaincy option other than the South African right-hander.

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“Because as of now, they do not have any other option as a captain and if you talk outside the team, in the auction or in the trading, none of the teams would be releasing a player who has the capability of becoming the captain of CSK,” Bangar opined.

Last month, speaking to The Times of India, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan had expressed confidence that Dhoni would continue to lead the team in 2021.

“Yes, definitely. I am very confident that Dhoni will lead CSK in 2021,” Viswanathan said. “He has won three titles for us in the IPL. This is the first year we have not qualified for the playoffs. No other team has done that. One bad year does not mean we will have to change everything.”