Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday said that Chennai Super Kings’ “core group” of players is set for overhaul after the franchise finished out of the IPL play-off bracket for the first time in 11 appearances.
A league-stage exit is a first for the three-time champions and one IPL’s most successful franchises.
“We need to slightly change our core group and look for the next 10 years,” Dhoni said after the team’s final league game.
“At the start of the IPL, we made a team and it served well. There comes a time where you have to shift a bit, hand it over to the next generation.”
Dhoni, 39, vowed that his team will come back strongly in the next season.
“We’ll come back stronger, that’s what we are known for.”
The World Cup-winning captain fuelled IPL retirement rumours by handing over his signed jerseys to Kolkata Knight Riders players after his team's victory on Thursday.
But, at the toss for Sunday’s game, Dhoni himself confirmed that he will be there next season. “Most definitely” said Dhoni when asked by former New Zealand pacer Danny Morrison if the game against Kings XI Punjab was his last for CSK.
“(The jerseys) maybe they thought I'm retiring," he said at the presentation ceremony.
Coming back to the campaign, he acknowledged that it was a very difficult one with the team losing eight of their 14 matches.
“It was a difficult campaign. We committed a lot of errors. The last four games were a template of where we would like to be. Dhoni accepted that team didn’t play to its full potential.
“I don’t think we played to the full potential. If you are lagging too much, it becomes very difficult to push yourself and come up with performances. Very proud the way they played their cricket. It would have been very tough 6-7 games.