‘Islie vo Dhoni hai’ – Fans react as MS Dhoni summons Ambati Rayadu and Ravindra Jadeja to lift 2023 IPL Trophy

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have now become the five-time IPL winners after they defeated the defending champions Gujarat Titans by 5 wickets in one of the most dramatic IPL finals at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Monday. Ravindra Jadeja turned out to be a hero for CSK at the last moment after six and a four when 10 runs were needed off the last two balls. However, this also turned out to be the last IPL match for the veteran batter Ambati Rayadu as he already announced his retirement a day prior to the final.

After the match, when CSK skipper MS Dhoni was called to collect the trophy for winning the tournament, he refused to go alone and asked Jadeja and Rayadu to come and collect the award on behalf of the team. Rayadu played a quickfire knock of 19 runs off just 8 balls when CSK were 171 runs in 15 overs. While Jadeja, finished things off for CSK as he remained unbeaten by scoring 15 runs off 6 balls.

‘This is the best time to announce my retirement. But…’ – Dhoni

Throughout the season, there was one question on the mind of every fan whether Dhoni will be seen playing in the next IPL or will announce his retirement after the end of the season. The same question was once again asked to Dhoni at the post-match ceremony. However, Dhoni still didn’t give any final statement but also hinted that he can be seen playing in the next season of IPL if he will be fit to play.

“Circumstantially if you see, this is the best time to announce my retirement. But the amount of love and affection I have been shown wherever I have been this year, the easy thing would be for me to say “Thank you very much”, but the tough thing for me is to work hard for another 9 months and come back and play at least 1 more season of IPL,” Dhoni said.

“A lot depends on the body, I have 6-7 months to decide. It will be more like a gift from my side, it’s not easy for me but that’s a gift. The way they’ve shown their love and affection, I think that’s something I need to do for them. You do get emotional simply because it’s the last part of my career, it started over here and the first game when I walked down everyone was chanting my name. My eyes were full of water and I just stood there in the dugout for a while. I realised I want to enjoy this. It was the same thing in Chennai, it was my last game over there but it will be good to come back and play whatever I can,” he further added.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: