IPL 2025: Virender Sehwag mocks CSK legend MS Dhoni with brutal 'jaldi aa gaye' comment for batting at No 9 against RCB

Cricket fans have come to terms with the reality that MS Dhoni will only get a handful of balls to face in the IPL. This has been the case for the last few seasons. Instead of fixating on how many balls he actually faces, Dhoni is more concerned with how many are left to decide when he should step up to bat. Still, the choice to have him bat at No.9 in a recent match for the Chennai Super Kings against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai was tough for many fans to digest.

In his heyday, Dhoni was often seen as better than the players batting ahead of him. Now at 43, he might not have the same sharpness, but it’s still a bit shocking to see him coming in after Ravichandran Ashwin in a T20 match, especially when he’s fit to play for CSK. This is particularly true when the required run rate is soaring above 16 runs per over. Let’s be honest: having Dhoni come in at No.8 might not have changed the outcome of Friday's match, given RCB's strong position, but it would have certainly kept them on their toes.

When Ashwin got out after a sluggish 11 runs off 8 balls, pushing the required run rate to 19 runs per over, even Dhoni's legendary skills were put to the test.

The decision to have Dhoni bat at No.9 was so baffling that former India opener Virender Sehwag, who played alongside him for eight years, jokingly suggested that Dhoni prefers to bat in the last two overs of an innings, which is why he came out so early.

"Jaldi aa gaye na (He came out to bat early)," Sehwag said in the Cricbuzz post-match show after RCB's 50-run win.

"When he came, 16 overs were bowled. Usually, he comes in the 19th or 20th over, so he came out to bat early, didn't he? Either he came out to bat early, or his batters lost wickets far too quickly," Sehwag added.

"We were talking about this that maybe he will walk out to bat at No.10," added former India cricketer Manoj Tiwary.

In the recent match, Dhoni really showed off his incredible batting skills, smashing three fours and a couple of sixes in the final two overs, racking up an impressive 30 runs off just 16 balls. This stellar performance gave him the highest strike rate of 187.5 among any CSK batter on Friday. But it does make you wonder—was his contribution from the No. 9 spot really that significant?

This is the question on every CSK fan's mind, as they wonder about the strategy behind Dhoni's position in the batting lineup. In a recent interview with Jio, Dhoni explained why he bats further down the order: he wants to give younger players an opportunity to flourish and earn a spot in the Indian T20I team. While that sounds excellent in principle, it did not work out as planned in the match versus RCB.

With both Jadeja and Ashwin batting ahead of him and having previously retired from T20Is, Dhoni's choice raises some questions regarding its usefulness.

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