The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 mega auction came to an end with 600 players going under the hammer and all 10 squads getting finalized. The bidding event, which went on for a full two days on February 12 and 13, was surely action-packed, but many notable names did not fetch a single bid and went unsold.
Among them is veteran batter Suresh Raina. The middle-order batter popularly known as Mr IPL went unsold in IPL mega auction. The UP cricketer, who had kept his base price was INR 2 Crore, failed to receive bids on day one, in fact, franchises did not even show interest in him on the final day as well.
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Fans were not happy with Chennai not picking up their most consistent player and amid all this, one of Raina's old videos started doing the rounds on the internet.
The 'Chinna Thala' can be seen talking of playing IPL 2022 only if MS Dhoni plays. Raina, who shares a great bond with the CSK skipper even beyond the field, stated that he would only play the next season if MS plays.
The video is even before Chennai had won IPL 2021, and in it, Raina had said, that if they win the 14th edition - which eventually they did - he would convince the legendary skipper to play one more season.
"If Dhoni bhai doesn't play next season, I too won’t play. We’ve been playing since 2008 (for CSK), if we win this year then I’ll convince him to play next year too. I’ll try my best. If he will not play, then I don’t think I will play for any IPL team," Raina had told when speaking to News 24 Sports.
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As for Raina, it will be only the second time that he won't be playing IPL since its inception in 2008. He had earlier pulled out of the T20 league in 2020 on a personal account.
In fact, after the 35-year-old went unsold at mega auction, it raised a lot of eyebrows and fans even questioned why CSK did not go for him especially after all the years of service and was even instrumental in CSK's success over the years. He has 5528 runs (fourth highest run-getter in IPL history) under his belt while averaging 32.5.
