‘However long I play…’: Dhoni’s ‘last phase’ remark sends retirement shockwaves | Cricket

Even at 41, MS Dhoni is playing close to the best cricket of his career. With the bat, despite coming well down the order for Chennai Super Kings, has been racking up sixes at will to own a strike rate of more than 210. And with the gloves, Dhoni produced another exquisite show on Friday at the Chepauk stadium against Sunrisers Hyderabad, picking up a record catch and inflicting two more dismissals in CSK’s seven-wicket win. As thrilling are these performances from Dhoni, fans want more and more of these from him, or probably just a glimpse of him in the field, as some of the posters at Chepauk indicated. But all good things come to an end and Dhoni hinted at the same as he dropped a bombshell on his IPL career after the SRH match.

There have been two common questions at the start of an IPL season over the last few years – who will win and will this be Dhoni’s last tournament? And every year, fans head to the stadium hoping that it won’t be the last time they see Dhoni in that yellow jersey.

IPL 2023 was no different. With Dhoni into his 40s, the question became more and more relevant with veteran cricketers and former teammates having mixed replies. However, Dhoni on Friday admitted that he is “in the last phase of his career”, a statement that send shockwaves and left fans emotional all over social media.

“All said and done, it’s the last phase of my career, however long I play,” he said when asked in the post-match interaction how he tends to deal with all the roar and crowd support at Chepauk. “After two years, the fans have had the opportunity to come here and watch, feels good to be here. The crowd has given us a lot of love and affection. Not getting enough chances to bat, but no complaints.”

A few days back, during a promotional event for CSK, Dhoni was directly asked the million-dollar question and the captain gave a gem of a reply which left everyone smiling.

“There is lots of time to take that call. Right now, we have lots of games, and the coach will be under pressure if I say something,” Dhoni had said as the room burst into laughter.

As far as Friday’s match was concerned, Ravindra Jadeja undermined Sunrisers Hyderabad with 3/22 and Devon Conway finished them off with an unbeaten 77. SRH could post only a sub-par 134-7, and CSK eased to 138/3 to win by seven wickets with eight balls to spare.

Chennai climbed to third on the table, and SRH was ninth.