Seeking a younger captain RPS sacked MS Dhoni

Sunday morning might have started a bit easy but the action picked up by noon. The news that former Indian skipper MS Dhoni has been sacked as the captain of the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Rising Pune Supergiants. The team management wasn’t impressed with the performance they returned with last season despite having a good team at their disposal.

They had quite a few options with them to replace Dhoni – they have the Australian captain Steve Smith, South African captain Faf du Plessis along with Indian Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane as well as Ravichandran Ashwin. But the franchise opted for the Australian and has decided to hand over the captaincy reins to the27-year-old for the upcoming season.

“We have opted for Steve Smith as captain of RPS for the forthcoming IPL season,” RPS owner Sanjeev Goenka was quoted by India Today. Despite having a good side the team did not get expected results last year. Last year we failed. We could have done much better,” he added.

It was conveyed to Dhoni and he is pretty happy to assist Smith with the job. Something he has been doing with the Indian team as well after he stepped down to hand over Virat Kohli the responsibility. “Mahi was cooperation personified when we conveyed the decision to him,” Goenka said.

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He didn’t have a particularly good season in 2016 as he managed to score just 284 runs in 12 innings and the team could notch up only five wins after playing all their 14 matches and ended just above Kings XI Punjab in the points table.

Dhoni is among the most successful captains in the IPL having led his previous franchise Chennai Super Kings for all the eight editions since its inception to suspension. Under his leadership, the team won two IPL titles and went on to lift the trophy twice in the Champions League T20 as well.

India Today journalist’s tweet read “Sanjeev Goenka to me “@msdhoni was cooperation personified when informed him. He is a great leader but i want a young captain.”

Sanjeev Goenka to me "@msdhoni was cooperation personified when informed him. He is a great leader but i want a young captain." @IndiaToday

— Boria Majumdar (@BoriaMajumdar) February 19, 2017