CSK's 2nd retention for IPL 2025: Ruturaj Gaikwad or Ravindra Jadeja? Former player reveals his pick

New Delhi: Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra believes that the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) could face a tough decision in selecting between Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ravindra Jadeja as their first capped player retention before the IPL 2025 auction. Chopra also predicts that MS Dhoni will be retained as the franchise's first player, but as an uncapped player.

Ruturaj scored 583 runs at an average of 53.00 in 14 innings, Gaikwad was the second-highest run-getter in IPL 2024, behind only Virat Kohli with 741 runs. On the other hand Jadeja, amassed 267 runs in 11 innings and picked up eight wickets at an economy rate of 7.85 in 14 innings.

In a video shared on his official YouTube channel, Chopra said that CSK might have a tough time in choosing between Gaikwad and Jadeja as their 18-crore retention.

“You are going to retain Dhoni as an uncapped Indian for four crores. So that’s your first retention. In my opinion, this team has just two players who you would want to give 18 crores – one is the captain and the other is an ex-captain and a very important player of this team – Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ravindra Jadeja,” he said.

“You want to give 18 crores each to both of them but who will be the second retention, Rutu or Jaddu – that’s a big question. Assuming you told Rutu that you would retain him for 18 crores, and convinced Jaddu to be retained for 14 crores, the third retention from the capped category has to be Shivam Dube,” the former KKR player added.

Chopra suggests that Shivam Dube could be CSK’s third capped retention, following Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ravindra Jadeja as the likely first two choices in that category.

“I am looking towards Indian players who have game-changing abilities and Shivam Dube’s performance for this franchise has been incredible. The third very big metric is that if I let this player go, for how much will he be sold at the auction? You have the Right To Match card, so it’s not that you can’t build the core. Suppose you retain only two, you will get four RTMs,” he said.

Dube scored 396 runs at a strike rate of 162.29 in 14 innings in IPL 2024. He delivered few match-winning performances in the first half of the tournament but lost his touch as the season progressed.