Former New Zealand pacer Simon Doull opined that Suresh Raina lost the loyalty of MS Dhoni, which was the main reason why CSK showed no interest to bid for the left-hander. Notable that Suresh Raina who is among the leading run-scorer in the history of IPL went unsold in the two-day mega auction held in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13.
Raina was associated with Chennai Super Kings since the inaugural season. He captained Gujarat Lions in 2016 and 2017 when CSK was banned for two years for corruption charges otherwise he was one of the pillars in the yellow army and played a key role in all 4 times when CSK won the trophy.
Suresh Raina left the bio-bubble ahead of the 2020 season citing personal reasons
However, his performance in the 2021 season was way below par as he scored 160 runs in 11 innings with a strike rate of 125 which included only one fifty. And he was also demoted from his usual no.3 position. In his IPL career, Raina scored 5528 runs in 200 innings with an average of 32.52 and a strike rate of 136.73 which included one hundred and 39 fifties.
Former New Zealand pacer Simon Doull believes that there are more reasons for it than his performance last season. He pointed out that his game against quality pace has worsened in the last couple of years and his fitness level also went down.
“There are 2 to 3 parts to it. He lost his loyalty in the UAE. We don’t need to go into why that was but you know there’s enough speculation about that, so he lost the loyalty. Of all the team, he lost the loyalty of MS Dhoni. So once you do that, you are very very unlikely to be welcomed back. He’s not fit and he is scared of the short ball,” Simon Doull spoke to Cricbuzz.
Doull was referring to the 2020 season when Raina left the bio-bubble ahead of the tournament citing personal reasons and as CSK finished 7th in the tournament which wouldn’t have gone well with the CSK management. Interestingly Raina hasn’t played any kind of competitive cricket since the last IPL season.
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