MS Dhoni is yet to walk out for Chennai Super Kings this season, and—if you listen to Stephen Fleming—it all goes back to one full-tilt dash in an otherwise routine pre-season hit-out.
“The calf is a tough one,” the head coach said after Sunday’s eight-wicket defeat to Gujarat Titans. “If he takes off and rips the calf again, then he will be gone [for the whole season]. So we pushed it early. In a warm-up game, he tweaked it again, is my understanding. And since then, he has been just working hard to get some movement into it. But there was a setback.”
That short burst has turned into a long wait. Dhoni has trained with the squad since March—plenty of social-media clips of throw-downs and under-arm lobs—but has missed all eight league fixtures. He has stayed away from the dug-out on match-days as well, a sign that the 44-year-old is nowhere near match fitness.
Still, Fleming is not sounding the alarm. “But look, he’s the guide on this one,” he added. “And he’s working hard with the physio and doing all the rehab. We’re just waiting for the word, really. But all I can keep saying, it’s not making light of this, he is progressing and doing everything.”
Four days earlier, captain Ruturaj Gaikwad offered his own, rather more laid-back, version of events in a CSK video: “You know, we were playing a practice match. That’s when he snapped his calf and then he wasn’t able to run as comfortably as he wanted to.
“And I think after that, it was just about, he saw some of the youngsters playing in practice games and playing in match simulations where he felt confident enough on them, you know, who are ready, who have that ability to play in the IPL.
“After that, it was just about taking time on his recovery. Slowly, slowly, he is getting there. Never know, maybe next game, maybe after that, but definitely one day for sure.”
Those “youngsters” have had mixed returns. CSK sit sixth: three wins, five defeats, net-run-rate hovering around neutral. Six matches remain, beginning with Mumbai Indians in Chennai on 2 May. The margin for error—always slim in a ten-team league—has almost vanished.
Team physios tend to measure calf injuries in weeks, not days. A grade-two strain can take a month; a full rupture, even longer. No one at the franchise is putting a timescale on Dhoni’s return, perhaps wary of the hype that traditionally surrounds any update on him. The mood is hopeful, though cautiously so.
A final thought from a long-time support-staff member, offered off the record: Dhoni wants one more run around Chepauk. But the calf will have the final say.
