MS Dhoni has to play super-competitive cricket before IPL 2021: Kumar Sangakkara

Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has urged MS Dhoni to play competitive cricket in the build-up to the next edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) while hoping that the veteran gloveman returns to lead the Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2021.

Dhoni hasn’t looked in his best of touch in IPL 2020 thus far as rustiness crept in his batting. Even Dhoni himself conceded that he has struggled to find form due to lack of cricket and practice in the last 12 months.

".... you will always have a season or series where you're off the boil, and this is MS's. It has reflected on the team's fortunes as well. And it's something you get to expect. You can over analyse it, you analyse it any which way, it just happens. And it's happened at the back end of MSD's career.

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"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," Kumar Sangakkara told Star Sports on Thursday.

So far in IPL 2020, Dhoni has managed to score just 199 runs in 12 matches at a mere average of 28.42. His IPL career average is 41.32. Dhoni hasn’t scored a single half-century in the tournament.

However, Sangakkara stated that one bad season doesn’t make Dhoni a lesser player or less important for CSK in the future.

"I am sure he is hungry to keep playing, hungry to perform. 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.

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"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."

MS Dhoni didn’t play any sort of competitive cricket since playing his last match for India in the semi-final of ICC World Cup 2019.