IPL 2020: Kumar Sangakkara Suggests MS Dhoni To Play Some More Competitive Level Cricket

Former Sri Lanka captain, Kumar Sangakkara feels that MS Dhoni should play some more competitive cricket — to keep in the rhythm of his batting in a bid to prepare for next season.

MS Dhoni has had a lacklustre form with the bat, same as the performance of his team in the IPL 2020. Dhoni has scored 200 runs at an average of 252 and a strike rate of 116 with and not a single half-century.

You can’t have long gaps between your IPL seasons: Kumar Sangakkara

Kumar Sangakkara believes that no match practice between the IPL seasons has hurt MS Dhoni. Before the IPL 2020, the last high-level game Dhoni played was for India in the World Cup 2019 semi-final against New Zealand. The Ranchi lad since then didn’t play a single international game and then announced his retirement in August 2020.

Sangakkara said that he has to some more super-competitive cricket in between and can’t have such long gaps without playing domestic or regional cricket, if not international. The Sri Lankan said that there is no point trying to look for personal runs now with only two games left and he thinks Dhoni will always want a team victory over his personal runs.

Talking to Star Sports, Kumar Sangakkara said, “He will of course be disappointed with his personal form but with only 2 games to go, I don’t think there is any point in trying to salvage that. It’s about winning games. He can address it after he goes and comes back next year.

“But what he has to do is to play some more super-competitive cricket in between. You can’t have long gaps between your IPL seasons, not playing international cricket, or not playing regional or first-class cricket. He has got to be super competitive and play competitive cricket to be in form.”

The cricketer-turned-commentator also said that lack of form or the losses CSK suffered this season doesn’t make Dhoni less of a batsman or any less important for CSK as it’s just one of the phases the Chennai skipper has to deal with. The left-hander said that Dhoni will always think of the team before his self, and he would rather take a team win over his own half-century.

“But that doesn’t make him a lesser player or less important for CSK at all. It’s just one of those phases that he has got to deal with and he’s got to come out of it. Knowing MSD, he would much rather take a team win than a half-century for himself. That’s the way he has been built, that’s the way he has always thought. If he can contribute to it in any way, even by scoring 10 runs he’d be happy.”  he added.

CSK are languishing at the bottom of the table despite two consecutive victories. They will face Kings XI Punjab in their last game of the season on Sunday afternoon in Abu Dhabi.

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