Was it the poor show of the Rising Pune Supergaints in their debut IPL season last year which forced the franchisee to replace skipper MS Dhoni with Australian Steve Smith? Or was there something more to the story?
BCCL
Sources indicated that things didn't go off well from the start itself. There seemed to be a lack of trust as the team owners hadn't heeded to Dhoni's advice in the auction last year. The former Indian skipper wanted the owners to get West Indian allrounder Dwayne Bravo and New Zealander batsman Brendon McCullum on board in their inaugural season. He had categorically made it clear that these two would be an important part of his strategy and would be assets for the team. However, the franchisee chose to ignore his advice.
After picking Dhoni as their first capped player through the player draft system, the owners opted for Rahane as their second choice. It was followed by R Ashwin, Steve Smith and Faf du Plessis. On the other hand, McCullum and Bravo were the third and fifth choice of the Gujarat Lions at the auction. Sources insisted that the Pune team got ample opportunity to buy these two players but they deliberately ignored them.
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BCCL
When TOI approached the Supergiants, they said that there was no difference in opinion with Dhoni and he was not sacked as it was being made out. "It was a mutual agreement and Dhoni will continue to play a key role for the team," they said.
"For years, Bravo was Dhoni's go-to man and that is the reason he wanted him to be in the team. But the management, who sat at the auction, completely ignored Dhoni's judgement. McCullum was his second choice, which was again ignored," a source said while talking about Dhoni's style of captaining.
BCCL
Despite the snub, Dhoni, according to insiders, still didn't mind leading a side which was plagued by injuries to quite of lot of key players. Their campaign completely went off the radar. So much so that even India's best spinner Ashwin wasn't given his full quota of four overs in several games, which led to quite a few disagreements.
In the end, Supergiants finished second-last. They won only five games out of 14. Under Dhoni, this was for the first time that his team didn't make it to the IPL playoffs.
"Even today, he doesn't mind the change of guard happening in the Pune team. It's their team and they can do whatever they feel like doing," another source added.