Former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir has praised the Chennai Super Kings’ strategy of retaining most of their senior players, calling it the “right” move. CSK had submitted the lists of retained and released players for the next edition of the Indian Premier League last week.
He further said that captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s “specialty” is that he doesn’t make plans for too far ahead in the future and thinks about building the team each season.
After the franchise’s dismaying performance in the last IPL in the UAE, it was expected that the Dhoni-led side would go for a revamp―releasing senior players and building a younger team for the next edition.
However, CSK retained its core players, including Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Faf du Plessis and Dwayne Bravo, while releasing players such as Harbhajan Singh, Kedar Yadav and Piyush Chawla.
“I feel it is the right strategy. Overall revamp does not mean that you change the entire team. And if you see CSK’s season, it was not that bad a season. Just because there are a lot of expectations from CSK, they had qualified for the playoffs every time, probably because of that we were asking if they need an overall revamp,” Gambhir said on the Cricket Connected show on Star Sports.
“This is M.S. Dhoni's specialty. I have always said that M.S. Dhoni does not think too far ahead. He only thinks about building the team for a particular season and that is the difference between CSK and RCB. People are saying that CSK had a very bad season and need an overall revamp but despite that, they have left only five players. On the other hand, RCB have left ten players even after qualifying for the playoffs.”
“CSK’s success story in the IPL is a balanced mind which knows how important it is to give security to the players, not only to those players who are in your playing XI but also all the players who are sitting in the dressing room,” he added.
