“Young Indian Players Spend Time With Him”: Fleming On Dhoni’s Role In CSK Pre Season

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India] : Ahead of the Indian Premier League 2024, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming spoke about skipper MS Dhoni’s strong role in pre-season activities, saying that he goes in early to the pre-season camp and young Indian players spend time with him.

The former left-hand batter asserted that the Chennai Super Kings’ pre-season has extended over the last few years.

“Given the age of some of the players and amount of cricket they’re playing, our pre-season has extended over the last few years. So MS takes a very strong role there and he needs some volume, so he goes in early and the players just gravitate towards that,” said Fleming as quoted by the CSK website.

The 50-year-old further stated that there are many benefits as the youngsters spent time with the former India skipper during the pre-season.

“It enables young Indian players to reconnect, and then international players who’ve had commitments, they tend to come in a little bit later. The big benefits that our local Indian players get is, one, time to spend with MS Dhoni, and two, a chance to get back into the system,” the former New Zealand skipper added.

The 17th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will start on March 22, with the MS Dhoni-led side who are defending champions are set to clash with the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in a South Indian derby at their home arena – MA Chidambaram Stadium.

CSK squad for IPL 2024: MS Dhoni (c), Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Simarjeet Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman, Avanish Rao Aravelly.