A calculated “arithmetic” move helped IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings [CSK] beat competition and buy MS Dhoni in the tournament’s inaugural auction in 2008.
Ahead of IPL’s inaugural season, five ‘icon players’ – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh – were unveiled for the tournament. The five players were not part of the bidding process and were supposed to earn 15 per cent more than the team’s top buy in the auction. Dhoni, the recently retired wicketkeeper who had captained the country to the 2007 T20 World Cup title just months ago, went through the auction route.
In a recent interview with PTI, N Srinivasan, the former BCCI president who also owned the Chennai Super Kings franchise, revealed how the team went all out to bag Dhoni, knowing that some of the other teams would be looking to go for ‘icon players’ who belonged to the region the teams represented.
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“It is a question of arithmetic,” Srinivasan said, “at that time Mr [IS] Bindra was there, [so] Punjab wanted Yuvraj [Singh] to play for them, Delhi [Daredevils] wanted [Virender] Sehwag to play for them, Mumbai could not imagine a team without Sachin Tendulkar, how could Sachin play for somebody else.
“Therefore all them said they wanted icons, they had to pay the icon 10 per cent [15 per cent] than the highest-paid player of the team in the auction. So when the bidding went on for Dhoni, I was clear at any price MS Dhoni.
“If it weren’t for Dhoni, I would never have played these many IPL games."@jakati27 played a starring role in the early triumphs of @ChennaiIPL. He chats with @Aadya_Wisden about those heady days.https://t.co/9QIdo71cac
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) May 7, 2020
“When it came to USD 1.5 million, I think they realised they would have to pay Sachin USD 1.65 million and Dhoni USD 1.5 million, five million was the purse and sixty per cent of the purse would go on these two players. So they stopped and that’s how we got Dhoni because I said I don’t want an icon.”
Dhoni went on to become one of IPL’s most successful captains, leading CSK to three IPL titles [2010, 2011 and 2018] and Champions League T20 wins in 2010 and 2014.
