The Recurring Puzzles: Why isn’t MSD retiring? When is MSD retiring?

 No post-covid IPL season was over without larger debates into CSK 'thala' Mahendra Singh Dhoni's ultimate retirement from professional cricket, which is currently limited to the Indian Premier League. The captain 'cool,' who is now 43 years old, retired from international cricket at an early stage, first from test cricket and then from limited over cricket, after an illustrious career in which he led the Indian Cricket team to two world titles in limited over cricket. The manner in which Dhoni reacts to such queries makes them recurring puzzles season after season.

Are these the appropriate questions to pose? Perhaps not, because they are asked in the negative, but we should ask them in the affirmative: Why is MSD still playing IPL?

This is not a request for Dhoni to retire from the IPL. It would rather investigate why MSD will not retire until a specific 'event' occurs within the Chennai Super Kings team, and the wait continues.

Having said that, none of his on-field or team management performances provide a compelling reason to call for his retirement. Given his present form, MSD has every right to play in the IPL. It's not just his class that's keeping him from retiring. Many cricketers would not have retired if class had been the cause, considering the oft-quoted adage that "class is permanent, form is temporary." Cricketers rarely continue to play at the highest level over the age of 43.

One may argue that Dhoni is a dedicated cricketer who pushes himself by putting himself through challenging responsibilities. When asked if he was retiring after winning the IPL title in 2023, he answered, "If I can come back fit within the next nine months, I can play yet another edition of IPL in 2024." Interestingly, he went on to undergo knee surgery!

MSD's continued participation in IPL is not motivated by form, class, fitness, or age. Could it be the monetary element of it, because as a senior player and captain of CSK, there is a sizable sum of money waiting for him if he stays for another season?

The reasons cited above contain both extraneous and intraneous motivations for MSD to continue. The former include his fitness, form, class, performance, and so on, and the latter include his projected monetary gains.

However, none of these, individually or collectively, create a compelling justification for Dhoni to remain, in my opinion. He is continuing for a different purpose than would normally be expected. To explain this, we must return to an earlier period in IPL history.

The IPL began as a city-based franchise concept, with eight Indian cities picked to host teams. To balance the team and give it a "local touch," the IPL's governing council picked five leading Indian players as "icon players." Sachin Tendulkar (MI), Sourav Ganguly (KKR), Rahul Dravid (RCB), Virendra Sehwag (DD), and Yuvraj Singh (K11P) were among them. The icon players were ethnically from their respective cities, although some of the teams lacked icon players. The teams were presented in the names of iconic athletes as part of the approach. Teams like CSK, DC, and RR had to locate their own 'icon; players, which they did successfully. As a result, the three of them were not 'ethnically; tied to their respective cities, and MSD is one such find for CSK. In this way, MSD is an unintentional icon player. Of the IPL and CSK.

 

He led the team to victory, appeared in two-thirds of the IPL title matches, won five titles, and established himself as the most successful and consistent captain. Thus, Dhoni is not just an unintentional figure for CSK; he has also become a 'self-made' icon for Chennai Super Kings.

This is the turning point in the story.  MSD took the tea Chennai Super Kings from a team without an icon player to a team that only had him as the icon player for all of the seasons that they played in the IPL over the last fifteen years, He became the all in all of CSK, the huge fan following that the team has is due to the presence of MSD at the helm of affairs, He is referred to as 'Thala' the head in the language Tamil which indicates his impact within the locale.

It's not that MSD tried to break free from the image of Chennai's symbol player by taking over as captain for a brief time; nevertheless, that experiment failed owing to the team's recurrent failures that season, forcing Dhoni to take both the captaincy and the icon-players' position.

It suggests that CSK has yet to find an icon-player equivalent for Dhoni. An ordinary replacement for Dhoni makes team management easier, but what is needed is a head, nothing less than an iconic head. Thala. The rationale for the continuation of Dhoni is CSK's search for an iconic head.