Ravi Shastri is of the opinion that things could have been better for Chennai Super Kings if they would have retained Faf du Plessis in the squad. Shastri also added that handing the captaincy to du Plessis would have allowed Ravindra Jadeja to play freely and that might have made a difference.

Chennai Super Kings had made a dismal start to the IPL 2022 losing all of the four matches they played so far. Ahead of the mega auction for this season, CSK had retained Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni, Moeen Ali and Ruturaj Gaikwad. The exclusion of Faf du Plessis from the retention was a surprise for many as he has plenty of experience with him and has scored 2722 runs from 86 innings at 35.4 for the franchise. 

Former India cricketer Ravi Shastri believes that CSK shouldn’t have released du Plessis.

“I feel that someone like Jadeja, he should focus on his own game. If Chennai were to think back, they wouldn’t have let go of Faf du Plessis. He is a match-winner, he has won the IPL with Chennai, he has a lot of experience.” Shastri said on ESPNcricinfo after CSK lost to SRH by eight wickets.

MS Dhoni has been the captain of the team till last season but he decided to step down from the role two days before the start of the ongoing season. Ravindra Jadeja was handed the captaincy in spite of having only a little experience of the role. He had captained the India U-19 side in 2007 but captaining CSK was going to be a big challenge for him. The team is yet to register their first win of the tournament and are going through a rough patch under Jadeja’s leadership.

Shastri believes that du Plessis would have been a good leader and things might have been different under his captaincy. 

“If Dhoni was thinking of giving up the captaincy, then Faf should have been given the job, and Jadeja should have continued as [just] a player. He would have played freely, without the pressure of captaincy. Things could have been different for Chennai then,” he explained.