IPL 2016: Rating the captains of the 8 IPL teams

7. MS Dhoni: Rising Pune Supergiants – 5.5/10

For the first time in IPL’s 9-year history, a team led by MS Dhoni didn’t make it to the final four

This IPL season was the first one wherein a side led by MS Dhoni couldn’t make it to the playoffs. For the past 8 seasons, the now-suspended franchise Chennai Super Kings had either won the tournament or had, at the least, made it to the playoffs under the leadership of Dhoni. However, this season saw that trend coming to an end, as one of most successful limited-overs captain in world cricket couldn't build a newly-assembled side.

While the dissociation of the Super Kings was a huge disadvantage, as bringing together a new side, wherein the players have hardly had any experience of playing with one another, a captain of Dhoni's stature was expected to do a lot better than winning just 5 of the 14 games in the season. The Indian limited-overs captain's problems were further aggravated through a series of injuries that hampered the side adversely as marquee players like Kevin Pietersen, Faf du Plessis, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith et al were ruled out at several stages of the tournament leaving the Supergiants with a limited arsenal to propel their campaign.

Despite signing players like Usman Khawaja and George Bailey during the latter stages of the tournament, the Supergiants couldn't perform well as a team and consequently finished at the 7th spot in the table. With the bat as well, Dhoni only looked to be a pale shadow of his former self, as he could not finish games for his side as much as he would have liked to. Although his stats indicate that he has a batting average of 40.57 this season while accumulating 284 runs from 14 games, his only effective knock came in the team’s last game of the tournament – which was a dead rubber, as RPS had already been eliminated from the race to the playoffs – wherein he finished the game in an unbelievable manner, smashing 23 runs off the last 6 balls.