What makes Indian Premier League interesting? While there might a lot of opinions regarding the question, there can’t be a better person than Mahendra Singh Dhoni to answer it. Having led Chennai Super Kings since its inaugural season in 2008, Dhoni has seen IPL evolve from being the first franchise league in the world to being one of most watched cricketing events ever. According to Dhoni, the convocation of players from all parts of the world in a single team makes IPL an exciting proposition.
Dhoni, who has won a record number of six IPL trophies till date, has led the Chennai Super Kings through both its glory and dark days. If rumours are to be believed, he will lead CSK for the last time in IPL 2024 before hanging up his boots.
Ahead of IPL 2024, Dhoni reminisced about what makes IPL special in a snippet released by Star Sports on its social media channel. Dhoni provide the example of the CSK batch in 2008 to bring home his point.
“The Chennai team that played in 2008 was a well-balanced team and had a lot of all rounders. The team had a vast pool of experienced players such as Matthew Hayden, Mike Hussey, Muttiah Muralitharan, Makhaya Ntini, Jacob Oram. To get them all together in one dressing room, to get to know each other was a challenge. I always believed that when you’re leading a team, it is important to make sure you understand each other. Once you know the individual, you know his strength, his weaknesses, it becomes easier as a team to move in the right direction,” Dhoni said.
“IPL gave me an opportunity to understand a lot of foreign players. I wasn’t somebody who talked a lot to the opposition players but IPL provided an opportunity to know about other players, to know what they think about cricket, to know their culture. All of that made IPL very interesting,” Dhoni added.
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