MS Dhoni took the world by storm when he shockingly announced his decision to step down as Chennai's captain ahead of the Indian T20 league 2022. He handed over the leadership duties to Ravindra Jadeja. Thus, there were a lot of expectations from the all-rounder.
However, he hasn't really had a good start to his captaincy stint as Chennai have lost their first four games of the 2022 edition. They are currently languishing at the bottom of the points table. This is their worst start in the history of the league. The poor performance of the Chennai-based franchise has led to several experts and analysts criticizing Jadeja's captaincy.
Ravi Shastri recently spoke about the same. He felt that Jadeja should have only played as a player. While speaking to ESPNcricinfo, he stated that the defending champions shouldn't have released Faf du Plessis, and the Proteas batter should have led the yellow army. Shastri also stated that Jadeja could play freely if there is no captaincy pressure.
"I believe, a player like Jadeja should focus on his cricket. If Chennai think about it again, they should have not let Faf du Plessis go because he is a match-winner and played a lot. If Dhoni didn't want to captain the side, then Faf should have become the captain and Jadeja should have played as a player. Because he (Jadeja) can then play freely, no pressure of captaincy," said Ravi Shastri.
"Things could have been different for Chennai," he added. It is to be noted that Jadeja was Chennai's first retention ahead of the 2022 mega auction. The franchise shockingly didn't retain Faf as they chose to retain Moeen Ali instead. The other two players to be retained by them were Dhoni and Ruturaj Gaikwad.
However, the Orange Cap winner of the 2021 edition has been having a torrid time this season. He has only been able to score 18 runs in four innings. As of now, Shivam Dube is Chennai's leading run-scorer. The all-rounder has scored 112 runs.