Former cricketer and all-rounder Kapil Dev on Monday said that playing just the Indian Premier League and performing well is ‘impossible’ for MS Dhoni. Kapil Dev added that the 2011 World Cup winning skipper must give a thought to domestic cricket to stay in practice, PTI reported.

“If Dhoni decides on playing only IPL every year, then it’s impossible for him to perform. It’s not a good thing to talk about age but at his age (39 years), the more he plays, the more his body will be tuned,” Kapil told ABP News, according to PTI.

Kapil feels that it’s high time that Dhoni plays some domestic cricket this season.

“He should go back to first-class cricket (domestic List A and T20) and play there.” The straight-talking former all-rounder made it clear that it will be a challenge for Dhoni given that he has already indicated that he is “definitely not” retiring from the IPL.

“If someone has achieved so much, the dip in form does affect and it becomes a challenge. Let’s see how he comes out of it,” Kapil said.

Ahead of Chennai Super Kings’ final game of IPL 2020, skipper MS Dhoni, during a conversation with Danny Morrison, sidelined all talks of his IPL retirement by confirming that he will continue donning the yellow colour and represent the side.

Dhoni used the term, ‘definitely not’ when Morrison asked him if the game against Kings XI Punjab was the last he was playing for Chennai.

However, Kapil Dev appreciated Dhoni’s willingness at an age of 39, he mentioned that not playing for 10 months in a year and suddenly showing up for India’s Premier T20 competition will produce similar results to what happened this time. MS Dhoni managed 200 runs in 14 games this IPL, at an average of 25 and strike rate a little over 116. The skipper played competitive cricket for the first time since the World Cup semi finals last year. Chennai Super Kings were out of IPL play-offs for the first time in 11 appearances.

“If you don’t play any cricket for 10 months a year and suddenly play IPL, you can see what happened. You can always have a season up or down if you have played so much cricket. It has happened to someone like Chris Gayle also,” the World Cup winning former skipper said.

Dev recently underwent an angioplasty after suffering a heart attack.