IPL Auction 2022: No fairytale ending for ‘Mr IPL’ Suresh Raina | Cricket News – Times of India

One of the most prolific batsmen in the league’s history fails to attract a single bidder, bringing the curtain down on an exceptional T20 career
It was the summer of 2008. A blazing hot April afternoon in Chennai. A group of young hopefuls and a few India discards were training inside an empty MA Chidambaram Stadium for the newly-formed franchise Chennai Super Kings. Among the India discards was a 21-year-old Suresh Raina, dripping with sweat and running the laps with determination. When TOI caught up with him, Raina said: “I am thankful to CSK for banking on me. I will do my best to make the owners and fans happy.”

For the next 10 years, the Uttar Pradesh boy kept his word. The left-hander, from being a fringe player, became ‘Mr IPL’, playing 176 matches for CSK and scoring 4687 runs. It reflected in his performances for the national team as well and he became a crucial cog in India’s 2011 World Cup-winning squad.
Even in the two years of CSK’s exile in 2016 and 2017, Raina was with the Gujarat Lions, but at heart he always remained a Super King. It’s true that his form had tapered off in the last few seasons, the most disappointing being 2021 when he was dropped at the business end of the tournament, but even the staunchest CSK fan would have hoped that one among the 10 franchises would show some interest in him.

Barring a miracle, it may well be the end of the road for Raina, still only 35. CSK have a number of players, including skipper MS Dhoni, Ambati Rayudu, Dwayne Bravo and Robin Uthappa who too are on the wrong side of the 30s.
The team has brilliant trainers and physios who know how to keep senior players in shape. If Raina, once the heir apparent to Dhoni’s throne, was even half of his best, he might as well have found his place in the team. But it was evident CSK had given up on him.

The team management felt that the skillsets of the once undisputed No. 3 had deserted him in the last few years. He had put on weight, was no longer the brilliant fielder he used to be and the runs dried up. Players like Dhoni and Rayudu too had their tough patches, but both of them showed fantastic work ethic to keep delivering the goods.
Raina, despite a very poor run in the last edition, was given 12 games by Dhoni but simply couldn’t deliver, registering his lowest IPL average (17. 38) for a season. The respect for Raina was still there and when the management dropped him, Dhoni said in public that it was due to an injury.

The bond that Dhoni and Raina shared in the first 10 years of the IPL was incredible and it reflected in their performances for India. There was almost a sense of inevitability about the fact that the two would find a way to help the team come out of a tight corner, time and time again. When Dhoni was asked in Auckland about their chemistry, after the two won a difficult game for India in the 2015 World Cup against Zimbabwe, the then-India skipper laughed. “We just understand our games too well and know what to expect from each other,” he had said.
Such was their bonding that on 2020 Independence Day, when Dhoni dropped the bombshell that he would retire from international cricket, Raina followed suit. But in a month’s time, things suddenly went out of control when CSK had to send back Raina from Dubai for reasons that they have still not explained.

It was a surprise that Raina was retained for the 2021 season, but Dhoni forgot the bitterness of 2020 and gave the left-hander a fair go. But it was simply not to be for the player, who probably had lost the motivation.
That doesn’t take anything away from all that he did for CSK. “He was just an incredible match-winner for us. I remember the 2008 semifinal against Kings XI Punjab and the innings that he played. It was one of the many gems and will always be one of the greatest players ever to have played for CSK,” the team’s bowling coach L Balaji told TOI.
Probably one innings of that quality in 2021 IPL could have saved Raina’s CSK career. But then, every beautiful story doesn’t have a fairytale ending.