Former India captain MS Dhoni has apparently stepped down from the captaincy of Rising Pune Supergiants on Sunday, as per a report by India Today and Wisden India. The rumors have been floating since late morning for a while as everyone were waiting for the official confirmation.The franchise stood seventh in the points table in the last edition of the Indian Premier League. The role of the skipper of Rising Pune SuperGiants has now gone to Australia’s Steve Smith.
Pune just managed to win five matches out of their 14 encounters. Dhoni, though, didn’t have a great run in the last edition but the 35-year-old consists of a flamboyant career as captain while he was leading one of the banned franchises Chennai Super Kings.
Under him, CSK grabbed the winning podium twice in 2010 and 2011 respectively while won the Champions league in 2010 and 2014. Dhoni, earlier this year, also stepped down as India captain of the limited overs format and the reigns were handed over to Virat Kohli.
Earlier, in a post-match presentation, MS was spotted saying that he hasn’t done with the captaincy as will continue to lead the Rising Pune Supergiants team in the Indian Premier League.
The IPL is set to commence from April 5 and will stretch to the last week of May while the auctions will be taking place in Bengaluru on February 20. RPS is one of the new teams who made a debut in the last season after Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were shown exit gates and were banned from IPL for two years. Gujarat Lions is the other team apart from Pune which was drafted in the IPL last year and is led by Suresh Raina.
