Despite finishing second-last in the eight-team points table in the previous edition of Indian Premier League (IPL), Chennai Super Kings decided to retain most of its core unit and only a handful of players were released before the mini-auction, which is slated to be held next month.
The team released Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Murali Vijay, Kedhar Jadhav, and Shane Watson. Meanwhile, the team management showed great faith in senior player Suresh Raina, who despite not taking part in the previous edition held in UAE, remains an integral part of the CSK line-up.
Former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir feels that CSK made the right move by retaining the core players. The former Kolkata Knight Riders skipper added that this is the speciality of MS Dhoni, adding he looks to assess the situation per season and doesn't get ambitious by pondering way too much about the future.
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"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 Star Sports' Cricket Connected chat show.
"This is MS Dhoni's speciality. I have always said that MS 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," he added.
"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 further said.
"Piyush Chawla, probably for the price tag and they have a replacement for him in Karn Sharma and Imran Tahir. Kedar Jadhav because of the number at which he bats and the price tag, that could be the reason, if he had a price of 3 or 4 crores, I feel MS Dhoni would have given him another season. They have left him only because of the price tag, which I think is a very very sensible thing CSK has done," Gambhir signed off.
CSK under Dhoni's leadership have won three IPL titles. However, the team endured a rough patch in UAE last year and failed to advance to the playoffs stage for the first time in the history of the tournament.
