Faf du Plessis recalls shock decision to remove MS Dhoni as RPSG captain before IPL 2017

Former South Africa National Cricket Team Member and former batter for the Rising Pune Super Giants (a defunct Indian Premier League franchise) revealed that they were shocked when the franchise hierarchy sacked MS Dhoni from the captaincy.

MS Dhoni was the skipper of the Rising Pune Super Giants (RPSG) during the 2016 season. Later, the franchise sacked him. Instead of Dhoni, RPSG, which was owned by Sanjeev Goenka, appointed Australia's star batter Steve Smith, who was very young then, as their new captain.

Speaking on a Cricinfo video, Faf du Plessis expressed that dismissing someone like Dhoni from the captaincy job was a big deal back in those days. Furthermore, handing the crucial job to Steve Smith, who then barely had any experience in leading a team, was also a huge call made by the franchise.

Faf du Plessis claimed that after a couple of defeats, the team management decided to remove Dhoni from captain's position.

"MS Dhoni was removed as captain of Rising Pune Supergiants after the end of the 2016 IPL season, and that’s the biggest move you can make in a tournament of that stature," du Plessis said.

“We hadn’t won a couple of games, and the owner at the time made the decision to change the captain. Everyone was shocked after that call."

Plessis, who later played as captain for his nation and multiple other franchises, felt that Steve Smith was pretty young to carry on the leadership role. But Dhoni was there to support him as the number two leader of the team.

Under the leadership of Smith, RPSG qualified for the IPL 2017 final, only to get defeated by the Mumbai Indians. Mumbai won the final match by 1 run, after scoring 129 runs in the first innings.

“MS Dhoni as captain was gone, and Steve Smith was the new captain. That was pretty early on in his leadership career. He wasn’t experienced, but he did a good job. It was tough having MS Dhoni as your number two there, especially after he’d just been removed as captain," Faf du Plessis continued.

Plessis further added that, as the young captain, Smith did a good job in his very first season as the RPSG captain. To date, Faf du Plessis believed that they should have won the IPL 2017 final. They went very close, chasing the 130-run target, but fell short by only one run in the penultimate over of the match.

"Smith led the team to the final, and we lost that final, which we should have won. We were that close. Winning that final would have made Smith an IPL-winning captain in just one season of captaincy. That says a lot about him," he added.

Smith scored 51 runs off 50 balls; Ajinkya Rahane scored 44 runs off 38 balls. But the rest of the batters in the line-up failed to deliver enough to take the RPSG to the finish line.