The other franchises were not in favour of bringing back the old rule
MS Dhoni has not played international cricket since the 2019 ODI World Cup • PTI
Could MS Dhoni be retained as an uncapped player by Chennai Super Kings for IPL 2025? It’s an avenue the franchise is exploring by suggesting that the IPL bring back an old rule that was in place for more than a decade.
During the meeting between the IPL and the ten franchises in Mumbai on Wednesday, it is understood that CSK wanted the reintroduction of a rule that had existed since the inaugural edition in 2008 until 2021, when it was believed to have been scrapped at the behest of teams. According to this rule, if a player was retired from international cricket for five or more years, they would be classified as an uncapped player. It is understood that apart from CSK, the majority of the other franchises were not in favour of reintroducing the rule.
Dhoni had announced his retirement from international cricket on August 15, 2020. Ahead of the following mega auction, before IPL 2022, Dhoni was the second player after Ravindra Jadeja on CSK’s list of retentions, at the cost of INR 12 crore from the franchise’s auction purse. An uncapped player retained that year cost the team only INR 4 crore.
If the IPL sets similar costs for uncapped players retained ahead of the 2025 auction, it is believed that CSK are keen to retain Dhoni via that route. Several other franchises, however, were not in favour of giving long-retired internationals uncapped status.
Sunrisers Hyderabad owner Kavya Maran is understood to have said that allowing a retired player to be retained as an uncapped player would be “disrespecting” the individual as well as their value, which would be much more at an auction. She said it would set a “wrong precedent” if an uncapped player bought at the auction was getting paid more than the former international retained as an uncapped player. Her suggestion was for the retired player to be part of the auction, where the market would determine their fair price.
A head of another franchise at Wednesday’s meeting said several teams apart from CSK were of the opinion that a former international player should not be considered in the uncapped category regardless of how many years he had been retired.
The question of whether Dhoni, 43, will continue to play the IPL is one that has arisen towards the end of the last few seasons. After undergoing knee surgery in 2023, he handed over the CSK captaincy to Ruturaj Gaikwad ahead of the 2024 season and played a limited role with the bat – coming in late in the innings as a boundary-hitter. At an event, Dhoni recently said he and CSK would wait for the player retention rules to be finalised before taking a decision on playing the 2025 season.
Retired India players could be allowed to lower base price
The franchises did unanimously agree that Indian players who had not played international cricket for five years should be allowed to lower their base price at the auction. The suggestion is understood to have come from the IPL chief operating officer Hemang Amin, whose view was that a lower base price would give such players a greater chance of getting bought at the auction.
A franchise head said that capped Indians who had not played internationals for several years were being forced to enter the auction at a high base price, and therefore going unsold despite their names coming up for bidding more than once.
Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo
