BENGALURU: Apart from catastrophic performance, the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been a theatre of melee for Chennai Super Kings. Before the tournament started, their regular skipper MS Dhoni voluntarily relinquished captaincy and handed it over to the all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.
However, after the team performed miserably in the first half of the tournament, the Chennai management decided to sack Jadeja as a captain and brought back Dhoni as the captain.
Now, he has also been ruled out of the remaining matches of the tournament owing to a rib injury.
In the wake of recent developments, the murmurs are gaining traction that all is not fine between Jadeja and Chennai management. The talks of rifts started surfacing when both of them unfollowed each other on the social media platform Instagram.
“Jadeja is severely disappointed by the manner in which he was sacked. He felt that he should have been given at least one full season to prove his capabilities as the captain. But this haphazard decision to turf him out and reappoint Dhoni as the captain hasn’t gone down well with him,” a source close to the CSK management told The New Indian.
What has also miffed Jadeja is that his mentor Dhoni apparently made some uncharitable remarks about his captaincy after he was sacked. “Once you become the captain, you have to take care of a lot of things and that also includes taking care of your own game. What I felt was that captaincy was having an effect on his game also. When he was going to bat or when it comes to his preparation, this burden was affecting his game,” Dhoni had said.
“I would love to have Jadeja as a bowler, a batter, and a fielder. Even if you are relieved from the captaincy and you are at your best, that’s what we want. We were also losing a great fielder. We are struggling for a deep midwicket fielder,” he stated.
Jadeja has come a cropper in the IPL 2022 both as a batsman as well as a bowler. The left-hander has scored only 116 runs and taken just 5 wickets in the 10 matches that he played.
His captaincy has come under fire even from the experts. Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri proclaimed that he (Jadeja) looked like a fish out of water as a captain.
“He (Jadeja) is not a natural captain. He hasn’t captained at any level. So, to give him the responsibility I thought was a little hard on Jadeja. People might want to judge Jaddu, but it’s not his fault. He hasn’t captained anywhere. He looked like a fish out of the water, totally out of place and he’s far better off playing as a player. Because he’s one of the best around in the business, when it comes to allrounders,” he said.
So, is it the end of Jadeja’s association with Chennai? He was picked up by Chennai in 2012 at USD 2 million and since then has been one of their leading players.
“See, Jadeja copped a slight injury in the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore. But this is not such a big injury that he has to miss the remaining matches of the IPL. There are some serious issues between Jadeja and Chennai management. If they will not be sorted, Jadeja is unlikely to play for Chennai in the next season,” the source concluded.