MS Dhoni will play in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2026), confirmed Chennai Super Kings (CSK) CEO Kasi Viswanathan. During an exclusive interview with NDTV, he clearly said that the former India cricketer will continue to take the field wearing the yellow jersey.
Currently, most of the top-class cricketers are busy with the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2026. IPL 2026 will be started after the conclusion of the tournament. According to the schedule, the cash-rich league will start in the last week of next month.
CSK CEO has clarified the entire situation regarding MS Dhoni.
Like in the past few seasons, ahead of the upcoming season, there has been a lot of speculation about the prospects of MS Dhoni, now 44, in the league as a cricketer who is at his peak.
Many cricket fans believe, and sometimes speak openly on social media platforms, that Dhoni has nothing new to offer the team, especially at this age. Dhoni himself had to face questions related to his IPL retirement on several occasions. While Dhoni mostly keeps a professional approach around him, the CSK CEO is straight talking.
“He will play, he will play,” Vishwanathan said while speaking to NDTV.
Dhoni will never retire from CSK
In February this year, during another conversation, Kasi Vishwanathan revealed a lot about his future plans with MS Dhoni in the central role. He said that Dhoni will always be with the franchise. Because he is not only a cricketer, he is also a crowd player and brand name, which helps the franchise to grow in other sports areas as well.
“MSD will definitely play this season and will always be with CSK. And the next step for us will be to invest in women’s cricket. You can rest assured of that,” she said as quoted by RevSportz.
In the same conversation, he explained why he invested in young MS Dhoni in 2008, while other franchises were interested in some of the icons of Indian cricket.
“We picked MSD in the auction in 2008 and must say he will always be our best investment. Most other teams had an icon player. Mumbai had Sachin, Kolkata had Sourav, Bengaluru had Rahul and so on. We didn’t and we picked Dhoni because VB Chandrasekhar had mentioned him to N. Srinivasan that he would make a great leader. How right he was!” Kashi Viswanathan said.
Dhoni’s batting statistics in IPL 2025
Dhoni, under whose leadership Chennai Super Kings won 5 IPL titles, scored 196 runs in 13 innings, including a highest score of 30 not out. He used to come late in the batting order to give playing time to other batsmen of the team.
Ruturaj Gaikwad is expected to lead the team in the upcoming season. In IPL 2025, Dhoni returned to the captaincy after Gaikwad’s injury after the first few matches of the league.
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