Former India captain Kapil Dev has said that it will be "impossible" for MS Dhoni to perform at the highest level if he decides on playing in the IPL without getting any match practice in between, as was the case in IPL 2020.
CSK were knocked out of the IPL before playoffs for the first time and Dhoni, who’s last competitive game was in the 2019 ODI World Cup, scored only 200 runs in 14 games with no half-centuries and a poor strike rate of 116.
"If Dhoni decides on playing only IPL every year, then it's impossible for him to perform. It's not a good thing to talk about age but at his age (39 years), the more he plays, the more his body will be tuned," Kapil told ABP News.
"If you don't play any cricket for 10 months a year and suddenly play IPL, you can see what happened. You can always have a season up or down if you have played so much cricket. It has happened to someone like Chris Gayle also," the World Cup winning former skipper said.
Kapil feels that it's high time that Dhoni plays some domestic cricket this season.
"He should go back to first-class cricket (domestic List A and T20) and play there,” he added.
The straight-talking former all-rounder made it clear that it will be a challenge for Dhoni given that he has already indicated that he is "definitely not" retiring from the IPL.
"If someone has achieved so much, the dip in form does affect and it becomes a challenge. Let's see how he comes out of it," Kapil said, as per the ABP report.
Kapil, who recently underwent an angioplasty after suffering a heart attack, wants the former India captain to play a lot more in the domestic circuit to get his form back.
(With inputs from ABP News)
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