Ahead of the IPL 2025 season, everyone is curious to know whether the 5-time champion captain MS Dhoni will take to the field again or not. Last season, with Chennai Super Kings qualifying for the playoffs and thus missing out on the title, there was a pang in the hearts of millions of fans wondering if Dhoni would end his career with the title. Dhoni’s fans can now breathe a sigh of relief on this matter as the possibility of their favorite ‘Thala’ playing in the upcoming season has increased. The BCCI has decided to reinstate the ‘uncapped player’ rule in the IPL, which was demanded by Chennai Super Kings, to retain MS Dhoni.
The rule of uncapped players is back
On Saturday, September 28, the IPL Governing Council meeting was held in Bengaluru, where several rules were decided for this year’s mega auction including player retention, auction purse. According to reports, this time the BCCI has increased the retention limit to 6 players, with an option to retain them through direct retention or Right to Match (RTM) cards. That means, if the franchise wants, it can retain all 6 players in advance or it can retain them through RTM in the mega auction or a combination of both.
However, the board also rules to retain a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 2 uncapped players. While this benefit is usually given to young players or players who are yet to make their international debut for Team India, this time MS Dhoni and Chennai Super Kings can take advantage of it. In fact, an ESPN-Cricinfo report revealed that the BCCI has decided to bring back the rule, which was scrapped ahead of the 2021 auction. This rule is to consider players who have not played international cricket for 5 years as uncapped players.
Advantage to Dhoni and CSK
Dhoni retired from international cricket in August 2020 but was out of international cricket since July 2019. In such a situation, it would have been 5 years since he quit international cricket before the mega auction. This way he can be retained as an uncapped player. The retention fee of an uncapped player is still Rs 4 crore. In such a situation, CSK can retain Dhoni by paying only Rs 4 crore, which will allow them to retain him in the team and not need to spend much money on him.
In fact, this rule was a part of the league since the inception of the IPL but was never used. So it was abolished in 2021. Now the decision has been taken to restart it and Dhoni is being credited as a big reason for that. In fact, a meeting was held between the BCCI and the franchise owners in July regarding the retention rules. The report then claimed that in this meeting, CSK demanded BCCI to reintroduce this rule of uncapped players, so that Dhoni could be retained as an uncapped player. However, the franchise rejected such claims.
