Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni said that he is uncertain about his future as a player at the franchise. This statement from the 40-year-old comes days after he had admitted that he hopes to play his final IPL game at Chepauk.

At the toss against the Punjab Kings on Thursday, Dhoni said there ‘will be a lot of uncertainties’ when it comes to the next season. 

 “Well, you can see me in yellow next year. But whether I will be playing for CSK?” he said at the toss. 

The Chennai Super Kings had bought Dhoni in the 2008 for a whopping $1.5 million. He has since then guided the team to three IPL titles (2010, 2011 and 2018) and two in the Champions League. CSK was suspended for two seasons – 2016 and 2017 – and those were the only years MSD didn’t don the yellows. 

Punjab skipper KL Rahul won the toss and elected to bowl first at the Dubai International Stadium. CSK have already qualified for the playoffs. 

“It is tough to maintain fitness. Whenever we came back for the second leg, we knew we will have back to back games. We had three games in five days,” Dhoni said at the toss. 

Chennai went with the same team, which means Mr IPL Suresh Raina was benched. 

Also read: IPL 2021: MS Dhoni advised Ruturaj Gaikwad to avoid social media, says coach

Talking about the IPL next year, Dhoni added,” Well, you can see me in yellow next year. But whether I will be playing for CSK? There are a lot of uncertainties around it for a simple reason that we have two new teams coming up. We don’t know the retention policy. We don’t know how many foreigners, Indian players we can retain, the money cap that every player will be cutting from the kitty. So there are a lot of uncertainties. Unless the rules are in place you can’t really decide that. So we will wait for it to happen and hopefully it will be good for everyone.”

IPL 2022 will see a mega auction, the details of which have not been officially announced yet. The BCCI  clarified that two new teams will be brought in the league. As per most of the media reports, Ahmedabad city will get one franchise while Lucknow and Kanpur could be the second new franchise.

Also read: Kieron Pollard chooses his five a side World T20 team, MS Dhoni gets a spot

Earlier, when asked about his farewell game, Dhoni had said, “When it comes to the farewell, you can come and see me play for CSK and that can be my farewell game. So, you will get the opportunity to bid me farewell. Hopefully, we will come to Chennai and play my last game over there and can meet all the fans.”

Teams (CSK vs PBKS)

Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Robin Uthappa, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Josh Hazlewood

Punjab Kings (Playing XI): KL Rahul(w/c), Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Sarfaraz Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Moises Henriques, Chris Jordan, Harpreet Brar, Mohammed Shami, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh