Mumbai: Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming said that Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s decision to relinquish captaincy was not a sudden move as they “talked about it” last season.
Fleming, however, said the timing of stepping down from CSK captaincy was left to Dhoni.
“We have talked about it. It is something MS talked about with me during last season. The timing was though his call,” Fleming said at the virtual post-match press conference on Saturday after CSK lost to Kolkata Knight Riders by six wickets in the IPL lung-opener here.
After 12 seasons, four title triumphs and five runner-up finishes later, the iconic Dhoni on Thursday decided to hand over the captaincy of CSK to his trusted lieutenant, Jadeja.
In a brief statement, CSK had said that the 40-year-old will continue to represent the franchise for the “season and beyond”, having led one of the most successful IPL sides since the tournament’s inception in 2008 — barring the two seasons when the team was suspended in the wake of the spot-fixing scandal.
Fleming said the transition from Dhoni to Jadeja has gone nicely.
“It has been documented widely to give Jadeja a clean slate going in the series (IPL). It was communicated to (Mr Srinivasan) through the team,” the former Kiwi captain said.
“We 100% respect that. It is going to be a bit of a transition period as we develop a relationship with Jadeja and also have MS there. You just don’t discard a player just because he doesn’t have the captaincy tag. Develop a new captain and you work with the experience you have got, and thankfully we have got quite a bit of that. This is a bit of a change, but we will work through that.”
PTI