The Chennai Super Kings dropped a bombshell on Thursday, just a day ahead of CSK vs RCB IPL 2024 opening game, that MS Dhoni will not lead the Men in Yellow.
An official statement from the franchise read, "MS Dhoni has handed over Chennai Super Kings’ captaincy to Ruturaj Gaikwad ahead of the start of IPL 2024. "
"Ruturaj has been an integral part of CSK since 2019 and has played 52 matches in IPL during this period. The team looks forward to the upcoming season," the statement added.
The official announcement came moments after the IPL released pictures of the 2024 captains photoshoot and surprisingly, it was Ruturaj Gaikwad who turned up for the Chennai Super Kings instead of MS Dhoni.
A similar thing happened with the Punjab Kings where Jitesh Sharma represented the PBKS franchise instead of Shikhar Dhawan. However, IPL's social media handle clarified that Punjab was 'being represented by vice-captain Jitesh Sharma.'
It didn't provide any such information for Dhoni, which led the fans to speculate that MSD might have handed over the captaincy duties to Gaikwad.
IPL 2024 is expected to be Dhoni's swansong as the former India captain is likely to hang up his boots after this season. However, no official announcement has been made yet.
Dhoni retired from international cricket on August 15, 2020, but has continued to play for CSK since then. He has led Chennai to 5 IPL titles in 16 IPL seasons.
Interestingly, it was the first time since the start of IPL back in 2008 that the IPL captains photoshoot didn't feature either MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma.