File photo of Suresh Raina (left) and MS Dhoni.© Twitter
MS Dhoni missed out as former Chennai Super Kings star Suresh Raina picked his best team of IPL 2023. Raina, who played for CSK for the majority part of his IPL career and won four titles with them, named Gujarat Titans’ skipper Hardik Pandya as the captain of his team instead of Dhoni. Meanwhile, the wicketkeeper-batter that Raina picked in his team was West Indies and Lucknow Super Giants player Nicholas Pooran. He picked Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill as the openers for the team, while Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav and Rinku Singh followed. Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj and Yuzvendra Chahal completed the XI.
The substitute players that Raina picked for his team were Cameron Green, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Jitesh Sharma, Matheesha Pathirana and Yash Thakur.
Raina revealed his pick on JioCinema during an interaction with host Aakash Chopra and experts Parthiv Patel and Zaheer Khan.
Parthiv too left Dhoni as he picked his team while Zaheer included the CSK veteran as captain in his best XI of IPL 2023.
Talking about the ongoing IPL season, Dhoni-led CSK entered the final with a 15-run over Hardik-led GT in the Qualifier 1. GT had finished at the top spot in table with 20 points from 14 games, while CSK came second with 17 points from 14 games.
On the other hand, Mumbai Indians defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 81 runs in Eliminator to set up a Qualifier 2 clash with GT. The winner of the game will take on CSK in the final of the tournament.
GT are the defending champions as they won the title in their inaugural IPL season in 2022. MI have record five IPL titles to their name, while CSK follow them with four to their credit.
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