ms-dhoni-sportstiger (1)

Picture Credit: IPL

The first match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 brought some smiles for Chennai Super Kings and MS Dhoni fans as their Thala hit a half-century after almost three years. Dhoni rolled the clock back and played a typical finisher's innings- the one he is famous for. After coming to bat at No. 7, Dhoni anchored the innings till the 18th over and then started his onslaught.

On the back of his unbeaten 50 off 38 balls, Chennai Super Kings posted 131/5 in their 20 overs. Although the team lost the game, Dhoni's return to the batting charts was the biggest positive for the team. Fans also reckoned that relinquishing captaincy duties might have helped in shrugging added pressure and thus Dhoni is able to score freely.

Amid this talk about Dhoni's return to form, one more point was raised by the fans in a poll conducted by the Times of India. The MS Dhoni fans are now demanding for the ex-captain to bat higher up the order. In reply to TOI's question "Batting at No. 7 in the IPL 2022 opener against Kolkata Knight Riders, MS Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 38-ball 50. Is it time now for the former captain to bat higher up the order for Chennai Super Kings? " 2166 people voted in favor of Yes while 595 said No out of 2838 votes.

Another question regarding CSK's most valuable player of the season for IPL 2022 also saw votes falling in Dhoni's favor. 1185 fans believed that ‘Thala' will be the stand-out player for his team this IPL season. 586 fans pinned their hopes on Ruturaj Gaikwad, while 475 votes were polled in favour of Jadeja. 202 fans voted in favour of Robin Uthappa. while Dwayne Bravo got 134 votes.

Fans not impressed with Jadeja's captaincy 

In the same series of questions, predicting Jadeja's captaincy success was also asked. And as expected, fans did not bat for Jadeja to be a successful captain like MS Dhoni in the long run. While 813 fans thought that Jadeja will be as effective as Dhoni, as many as 1253 votes were polled for the ‘No' option. Notably, Jadeja did not have an impressive debut as a captain as he failed to contribute both with the bat and the ball in CSK's first match.