Suresh Raina has been one of the integral players of the Indian cricket team during the heydays of his journey. His cricketing acumen and aggression helped him score runs at a rate of knots. He showed incredible resistance in the middle order by playing several impactful knocks for Team India when it mattered the most.
On the other hand, he has been a clutch player for Chennai Super Kings in the cash-rich Indian Premier League. Rightly so, he is often referred to as “Mr IPL”.Overall, CSK largely benefitted from his services in the batting department. It is worth mentioning here that he is the first-ever cricketer to complete 5,000 runs in IPL.
Suresh Raina has won four IPL trophies with Chennai Super Kings. He has also occasionally plied his trade as a stand-in captain for CSK and India during the absence of the regular skipper. Raina who spent over 13 years at CSK disclosed the reason why he didn’t choose to leave CSK despite getting offers from different IPL teams.
“Dhoni bhai would say don’t go elsewhere” – Suresh Raina
Suresh Raina who won the ICC ODI World Cup 2011 and ICC Champions Trophy as an Indian cricketer has finally opened up on MS Dhoni’s reaction when the former was approached to lead other IPL teams. When several other teams approached him, MS Dhoni would tell Raina not to go elsewhere.
Suresh Raina who shares a great camaraderie with MS Dhoni preferred to stay at CSK and served as Dhoni’s deputy. “Dhoni bhai would say don’t go elsewhere, I am the captain and you are the vice-captain,” the former CSK stalwart told cricket expert Aakash Chopra in an interview with JioCinema’s show Home of Heroes. This goes to show that Raina turned down captaincy offers from other IPL teams owing to loyalty to MS Dhoni and Chennai Super Kings. Suresh Raina is still CSK’s leading run-getter in the IPL. The experienced campaigner mustered as many as 4665 runs for the yellow army across 170 innings.