Credit: Twitter
After Chennai Super Kings lost a thrilling last-ball encounter against Rajasthan Royals by 3 runs at home in the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, MS Dhoni was spotted limping on camera as returned to the pavilion. It was MSD and Jaddu who shared a 59-run unbeaten partnership in the last five overs for CSK in the run chase after they were reduced to 113/6 by RR at one stage.
In a short clip posted on Chennai Super Kings' Insta page, captioned as “A warrior. A veteran. A champion - The One and Only!” MS Dhoni was walking towards the pavilion with a limp and waving to the fans who cheered for him very graciously in the grandstand.
Watch the video here:
Stephen Fleming, the head coach of CSK, was quoted as saying this about MS Dhoni’s fitness in the post-match press conference, "He is nursing a knee injury, which you can see in some of his movement, which is hindering him somewhat. But still what you saw today is a great player for us. His fitness has always been very professional."
Fleming went on to discuss when exactly the pre-season work for Dhoni begins before the IPL and how he prepares himself for match situations. "He comes a month before the tournament starts, so he doesn't get the opportunity to do a lot. He will stay fit, and they will do some netting in Ranchi, but his main pre-season is done a month before when he comes to Chennai. And he works his way back into match form and I think you can still see he's playing pretty well. So we never have any doubts about the way he manages himself and he always gets himself up to speed."
The Kiwi also talked about the growing injury list of CSK players in the last couple of weeks. " Magala's hand was split , unfortunately, so he was unable to bowl those last two overs. And the same with Deepak Chahar in the last game, so we're operating on pretty thin resources. But we're not the only team to have that."
CSK have already lost the services of Kyle Jamieson and Mukesh Choudhary for the entire IPL due to injury, while their replacements Sisanda Magala and Akash Singh respectively, were in action against RR last night. The current England test captain, Ben Stokes, has already missed out on the last couple of matches for the Chennai team due to a knee problem and his return to their starting XI isn’t confirmed either.