MS Dhoni to captain Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2018, confirms CSK team director

Chennai Super Kings fans have another reason to celebrate as the team confirmed that MS Dhoni will captain the side in IPL 2018. He will be among the players who CSK will retain as per the player retention rules decided upon in the IPL Governing Council meeting.

Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda about the player retention rules, Chennai Super Kings team director George John, said: "We are very happy about it. But we haven't applied our mind to it right now but we are extremely happy about it."

"(On MS Dhoni coming back to CSK as captain) Obvious, yes. It is a very obvious choice but we have not applied our mind beyond that."

The IPL GC meeting happened earlier today when the retention policies ahead of the 2018 auction were decided. It has been decided that a franchise can retain a maximum of five players using one of the two combinations - three pre-auction retentions and two RTMs or two pre-auction retentions and three RTMs.

Either way, a franchise can retain or use RTM for a maximum of three players in the auction. Moreover, if a franchise doesn't retain even a single player before the auction, they still can't use more than three RTMs.

While the teams that took part in the 2017 edition can retain players from squad that was submitted ahead of the 2017 season, Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings, who are coming back from a two-year suspension, won't have the luxury of retaining players from last year. Instead, both the teams can retain players from their 2015 squad who played for Rising Pune Supergiant or Gujarat Lions last season.

George also confirmed that they can only retain players who played for them in 2015. When asked about whether this was a disadvantage, as they were missing out on a player like Mohit Sharma who was with CSK, he said he was happy with the rules.

"We are happy with this. Thirteen players are there (from the 2015 squad), so we are fine with it."