IPL 2022: Dhoni playing for Mumbai!
Image Credit source: PTI
MS Dhoni.the player who is considered to be the brainchild of IPL team Chennai Super Kings. From buying players, to strategy to get on the field. Which player will play under which role in the team, all this Dhoni (MS Dhoni) Do the same. It is Dhoni whose selected team has won Chennai (Chennai Super Kings) Has been made IPL champion four times. Except IPL 2020, the team has definitely reached the playoffs every time. Dhoni has taken Chennai to the heights as a batsman, as a keeper and as a leader. Fans cannot even imagine Chennai Super Kings without Dhoni. But do you know that in the first auction of IPL, MS Dhoni Mumbai Indians (Mumbai Indians) Could have gone to the team, but because of Sachin, this franchise backed out from buying Mahi and this legendary player came in the team of Chennai Super Kings and then this team ruled the IPL.
The talk is of the year 2008 when players were auctioned before the start of IPL. Every team wanted to choose an icon player with them. Just like Delhi Daredevils wanted Virender Sehwag in their team. The Punjab team wanted Yuvraj and similarly the Mumbai Indians team wanted Sachin Tendulkar in the team. Icon players rule before the auction. The rule was that the icon player would get 10 percent more money than the most expensive player in the team. Dhoni was not an icon player of any team as there was no team in his state.
Chennai did not bet on the icon player
While all the teams wanted the icon player of the state with them in the team, on the other hand the thinking of Chennai Super Kings was different. Chennai did not want any icon player in the team. His first and last goal was to buy Mahendra Singh Dhoni first. In a special conversation with PTI, BCCI Chief N Srinivasan made an interesting disclosure about buying Dhoni.
Srinivasan said, "All the icons wanted players and they had to get 10 per cent more money than the highest paid player of the team. So when there was a bid for Dhoni, I was ready to buy Dhoni at any cost. There was a big fight between Mumbai and Chennai to buy Dhoni. When Dhoni was bid for $1.5 million, I think Mumbai realized that they would have to pay $1.65 million to Sachin. At that time the purse of the team was five million. Meaning if the Mumbai team had bought Dhoni as well, then 60 percent of the purse money would have been spent in buying these two players. So the Mumbai team stopped and we got Dhoni.
Also read: IPL 2022 Auction: Countdown for biggest auction begins in Bengaluru, 590 players will be sold in 2 days!
