At a time when many believe Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s international career is over especially due to the suspension of the Indian Premier League (IPL), former Australia and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batsman Matthew Hayden believes he knows it best when to draw curtains on his cricketing life.

IPL was looked at as the platform for the former Indian captain to make his case for a comeback into the national team for the ICC T20 World Cup, scheduled to be played in Australia later this year.

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“It’s always very hard as a personal friend of MS to comment on his career. I think every champion, and I consider MS to be a champion, always know the enough time to put themselves out of the game and not feeling that forced feeling of getting towards the end of the career when the time is ticking,” Hayden said as quoted by IANS.

“I am sure he will make the best decision for himself as he has done throughout his whole career,” he added.

Dhoni, who has been out of the national team since their semi-final exit from last year’s World Cup in England, was eyeing the thirteenth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as the platform to make his case for a spot in the national team for the ICC T20 World Cup, to be held in Australia later this year.

Meanwhile, the BCCI had also made it clear that the former India captain would have to perform exceptionally well in the upcoming IPL to be back in the mind of the selectors. However, with the IPL 2020 postponed and doubts hovering over its fate, the next step from Dhoni remains to be seen.

The 38-year-old had already joined the Chennai Super Kings camp and in some outgoing visuals from the Chepauk, Dhoni was seen sweating hard to prepare himself for the cash-rich tournament.

The IPL 2020, which was scheduled to be played from March 29 was earlier postponed to April 15 before it was suspended due to the crisis caused by the novel coronavirus till further notice.

However, there have been various media reports suggesting BCCI is mulling alternative windows like August-September and October-November to stage the 2020’s edition of the cash-rich tournament. But all of the speculations lacked an official backing as the fate of IPL continues to hang in doubt.