Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen said that he believed Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the best-ever captain because of expectations and pressure he had to deal with while leading India or the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League.
“It will be very difficult just with the weight of expectation to go against M.S. Dhoni because of what everybody expects from him, how he has to live his life and what he has been through captaining India and then captaining the CSK,” Pietersen said while speaking on Star Sports ‘Cricket Connected’ show as quoted by IANS.
As a captain, Dhoni has won everything that one can ask for. He is the first and the only captain in cricket’s history to lead his team to every ICC glory – the ICC World Cup in 2011, ICC World T20 in 2007 and the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013.
The 38-year-old has so far led Chennai to three IPL titles, besides two Champions League titles in 2010 and 2014. He has 190 IPL matches (including two editions for Rising Pune Supergiants) and has scored 4,432 runs, including 23 half-centuries.
Meanwhile, Dhoni last played for India in the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup after which he took a sabbatical from competitive cricket.
The 2011 World Cup-winning captain had joined the Chennai Super Kings camp thinking the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League would start as scheduled before it was postponed.
The three-time IPL-winning skipper with Chennai, Dhoni, had joined the Yellow Army’s training camp on March 2 before it was cancelled on March 14 due to the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
IPL now stands suspended for an indefinite period, confirmed Jay Shah on Thursday.