Chennai: Flamboyant young opener Ruturaj Gaikwad was on Thursday evening appointed as the new captain of five-time champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for the IPL 2024 edition.
He takes over from iconic skipper M S Dhoni, who had led the team since its inception to five title wins, including in the last edition.
An official statement released by CSK states "MS Dhoni has handed over Chennai Super Kings’ captaincy to Ruturaj Gaikwad ahead of the start of TATA IPL 2024."
Ruturaj has been an integral part of Chennai Super Kings since 2019 and has played 52 matches in IPL during this period.
In the 2022 edition, all rounder Ravindra Jadeja was appointed skipper in place of Dhoni for a brief while, before the baton was handed back over to Dhoni.
On March 24, 2002, two days before the start of the season, CSK announced that Ravindra Jadeja will captain CSK after MS Dhoni decided to step down as captain.
However, on April 30, Jadeja decided to give up his captaincy to focus more on his game and Dhoni was named the captain again.
Under Jadeja's captaincy, CSK lost 6 out of their first 8 matches. Following their defeat against the Mumbai Indians, CSK were elimated from the race for the playoffs for only the second time in their IPL history.
But under Dhoni's captaincy, the Chennai lions roared back to win the fifth title in 2023 at Ahmedabad defeating defending champions Gujarat Titans by 5 wickets.
There has been widepread speculations that the 2023 edition would be the swansong for Dhoni and he would call it a day after leading the team to a record fifth title.
However, he surprised everyone and much to the delight of Yellow brigage, which had stormed the Ahmedabad stadium on the memorable finals, stating that he would like to continue for one more year playing for CSK.
He said though he would like to sign off with the winning run, he decided to continue for one more year.
