End Of Road With CSK? Suresh Raina Drops Huge Hint His Days Are Over With The Franchise
Published - 27 Sep 2020, 01:45 AM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:34 AM
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Suresh Raina has perhaps dropped the biggest hint yet that his days with Chennai Super Kings have come to an end. The cracks appeared last month when he sensationally pulled out of IPL 2020 and returned to India from UAE. While he did not reveal the reason behind his decision, he stated that it was personal.
The franchise did not reveal the main reason behind the exit either although reports suggested that Suresh Raina was not happy with the room he was given. There were also reports of a rift between him and captain MS Dhoni. Things further escalated when CSK owner N Srinivasan expressed his disappointment over Suresh Raina’s decision and hinted that not all was well within the camp.
“The season has not begun yet and Raina will certainly realise what he is missing and certainly all the money he is going to lose,” Srinivasan had said.
“My thinking is that if you are reluctant or not happy, go back. I don’t force anyone to do anything … sometimes success gets into your head,” he had added.
Later, Suresh Raina had tried to do damage control by saying that Srinivasan was not aware of the reason behind his departure and had also said that he had still not ruled out the possibility of returning to UAE.
Suresh Raina unfollows Chennai Super Kings:
However, it looks like everything is over between Suresh Raina and CSK and that is pretty much confirmed by the batsman’s recent activity on Twitter. On Saturday, he unfollowed the franchise’s official Twitter handle.
They, however, still follow each other on Instagram but the recent Twitter activity is bound to raise eyebrows. On the same day, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan had also ruled out the return of Suresh Raina into the squad for the ongoing tournament.
“We cannot look at Raina because he made himself unavailable, and we respect his decision and his space. We are not thinking about it,” Viswanathan told ANI.
Suresh Raina was an integral part of the team since 2008, the first-ever season of IPL. He is the franchise’s all-time highest run-getter. In 2018, CSK retained three players before assembling the rest of the squad at the player auction and he was one of them. Dhoni was the first player retained at INR 15 crore, Suresh Raina was the second at INR 11 crore and Ravindra Jadeja the third at INR 7 crore.
But it looks like the highly successful association has come to an end now and one can say it is very disappointing. As far as CSK are concerned, they are struggling in the absence of Raina and have lost two of three games in IPL 2020 so far.
