Sometime last year, an India coach – a big name with close ties with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) old-timers – explored the possibility of a coaching role with the five-time champions. The timing seemed apt. The franchise had finished at the bottom, and all signs pointed to a major overhaul. Instead, he was told to wait.
Now that CSK has missed the play-off qualification for the third straight year, there is clamour for total revamp again. But the extent of it depends on the future of MS Dhoni, the club’s face and heartbeat. As long as he is around, coaches would remain hesitant to assume charges, fearing their powers would be curtailed. According to reliable sources, at least one interested candidate seemed convinced that until Dhoni is around, there is no way he will throw his hat in the ring. The coming weeks will give a clear picture.
This much is certain. The five-time champions are under immense pressure to ring in the changes. There is uncertainty over Stephen Fleming, who has been the coach since 2009. He revealed that the management would decide whether he leaves or not, and they haven’t had a conversation yet.
But the bigger puzzle is around Dhoni’s future. He missed all 14 games, the first time since the league’s inception; the soul of the franchise came to the stadium just once—for the final home game. When CSK played their last league game in Ahmedabad, Dhoni was in Ranchi, carrying the suspense around his future with him. The question on Dhoni’s future came up, after CSK suffered their worst-ever defeat, in Ahmedabad. “You and I will get to know it next year,” captain Ruturaj Gaikwad would say.
MS Dhoni of Chennai Super Kings during thank you lap post Match 63 of the TATA Indian Premier League 2026 between Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, India, on May 18, 2026. (CREIMAS)
The Kohli example
This suspense is doing no favours to anyone. What Dhoni decides from here should be irrelevant. At 44, he has overstayed as a player. For a long time, as CSK’s majority shareholder N Srinivasan once said, “CSK means Dhoni and Dhoni means CSK”. But it has come to a point where they need to look beyond him. If he has a future at the franchise, it is as support staff, not as a player. Should they decide to look beyond Fleming, then they have to take a call on Dhoni and not leave it to the former captain himself. The example is in Royal Challengers Bengaluru. After years of underachievement, when they wanted to start fresh, Andy Flower spoke to Virat Kohli and made him fit to the team’s needs. RCB was not going to fit into their most powerful player’s needs. At CSK, the story is opposite with Dhoni.
The word from within the camp is that since the 2025 season, Dhoni has detached himself from the planning and preparation. This season was largely the same – until differences emerged over the use of Shivam Dube as a finisher. The left-hander’s career kick-started at CSK, where his six-hitting made him a valuable asset in India’s twin T20 World Cup wins. Pushed into an unfamiliar finishing role, he managed fewer than the 21 sixes he hit last season. The numbers said what the dressing room could not.
When the squad assembled in the first week of March, there was optimism of at least making the playoffs. Having started building mid-way through last season, there was genuine belief—Sanju Samson’s arrival, a batting unit that showed intent. Instead, there was chaos. Three straight losses, a mini-recovery, another stutter, a comeback that promised something before the gas fizzled out .
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Five players who would have been regulars were lost along the way, which did not help. But the problems ran deeper than injuries. Their six wins all came against teams that finished below them. Their defeats against the top three were all huge.
There are broader questions about Fleming, too. With the IPL increasingly dictated by Indian talent, his familiarity with India’s domestic players outside the established names is limited to scout reports and videos. Last season, he flew to Chennai during the off-season for a week of trials – a genuine effort. But Sakib Hussain, passed over, went to Sunrisers Hyderabad and thrived. He skipped Priyansh Arya, who found his feet at Punjab Kings. CSK went into the season without a single Indian frontline spinner, having not pursued Ravi Bishnoi at the auctions.
Gaikwad has not been able to assert himself either. Filling into the huge shoes of Dhoni, there is space behind his heel as well as wriggle room in front of his toes. IPL is not a three-month gig anymore. Other franchises have camps even in the off-season, and there is constant tracking across the year. The top-rung of CSK’s support staff all happen to be overseas and they don’t spend time in India during off-season. If local players need a camp, they only have Sridharan Sriram and Rajiv Kumar to turn to. And should Dhoni begin a role in the support staff, then it requires him to dedicate more time.
With Fleming still having plenty of admirers in the franchise management, he could be given a wider role – like using his expertise in the overseas leagues CSK run, the SA20 and MLC – and free him up for IPL to bring in an Indian coach.
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With the MLC starting soon, there are indications that once it concludes, there will be a discussion about the way forward. Any new coach would need the off-season to prepare for the mini-auction, identify the core, and begin the longer rebuild that leads to the bigger auctions at the end of next season. So the quicker Dhoni decides, the better for the franchise.
