MS Dhoni and I talked about it last season: Stephen Fleming on Ravindra Jadeja's appointment as CSK captain

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have witnessed a change in captaincy for the first time since the inception of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008 as MS Dhoni passed over the baton to star all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja ahead of IPL 2022. Dhoni stepped down from captaincy earlier this week as Jadeja was handed over captaincy just a couple of days ahead of their opening game against Kolkata Knight Riders on Saturday (March 26).

Many had expected Dhoni to continue leading the side this year having been retained by the franchise ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction last month, however, the former CSK skipper once again sprung a surprise in his own style ahead of the season. However, the move was in the making for quite some time and Dhoni had discussed his decision to hand over the captaincy to Jadeja with CSK head coach Stephen Fleming last season.

After CSK's opening game of the ongoing IPL 2022 season against KKR on Saturday, Fleming opened up on the change in captaincy and revealed he spoke about it with Dhoni last year. Fleming also said Dhoni wanted to give Jadeja a clean slate as captain heading into the season so the timing of the decision was his own.

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"We talked about it. It's been something MS and I talked about during the last season," Fleming said on Saturday.

"The timing was MS's call. I think it's been documented that he wanted to give Jadeja the clean slate going into the series so it was communicated with Mr. Srinivasan and conveyed to the team. We 100% respect that," added the CSK head coach.

Dhoni and Fleming enjoyed a great captain-coach relationship for CSK as they together took the franchise to greater heights. Fleming has been the head coach of the four-time champions since 2009 and together with Dhoni, he managed to formulate strategies and plans which have worked for the side over the years.

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However, Fleming admitted the plans will now have to change a bit with Jadeja taking over captaincy and Dhoni no longer in charge of the team. He insisted having Dhoni still in the squad as a player and utilising his experience to groom Jadeja will be helpful for CSK.

"There's going to be a bit of a transition period as we develop the relationship with Jadeja and also have MS there so you don't just discard a player just because he doesn't have the captaincy tag. You develop the new captain and work with the experience we've got, and thankfully we've got quite a bit of that. It's a little bit of change, but we'll work through that nicely," said the CSK head coach.

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CSK made a shaky start to their IPL 2022 campaign under new captain Jadeja as they suffered a six-wicket defeat against KKR in their opening game of the season. In what was a shambolic batting performance, CSK managed to post a low-key total of only 131 runs at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai as KKR cruised to a comfortable win.