Amid intensifying buzz over MS Dhoni's possible retirement from all forms of cricket, fixing began trending on social media ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) contest between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

CSK will play their last league game against Virat Kohli's RCB at the M. Chinnaswamy on Saturday and speculation is rife that it could be MS Dhoni's final match in the cash-rich league.

Against this backdrop, fans on the microblogging site reckoned that to give a fitting send-off to MS Dhoni, RCB will lose to CSK during the weekend.

If RCB does lose to CSK, it will allow MS Dhoni's team to move into the playoffs, helping the iconic player to take one more step towards another IPL final, which will be played at the M. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, the home base of the franchise.

The former Team India captain underwent knee surgery last year. While CSK's management has been managing his workload, sending him to bat lower down the order, pundits feel that his body can no longer survive the rigors of top-level cricket for almost two months, considering that the 42-year-old doesn't play any other form of the sport during the rest of the year.

Interestingly, despite the constraints he has to deal with this season due to injury, MS Dhoni still has impressive numbers in IPL 2024.

Particularly, MS Dhoni's performance in the death overs has been phenomenal. For instance, he smashed Hardik Pandya for three consecutive sixes in a match against Mumbai Indians earlier in the tournament.

Overall, MS Dhoni has made 136 runs in 13 fixtures in the 17th edition of the IPL and what's astounding about his stats is his strike rate of 226.67

Like everyone else, former CSK batter Michael Hussey is clueless about MS Dhoni's impending plans. However, he wished to see MS Dhoni continue for a few more years.

“Your guess is as good as mine at this stage. He keeps his cards very, very close to his chest. We are hoping he does keep going,” Michael Hussey noted.

“He is still batting so well. He does prepare well – he gets into the camp very early and hits a lot of balls. He has been in good touch all season really. I guess we just got to try to manage him from the body side of things. He had a knee surgery after the last season. So he has been managing that from the initial stage of the tournament,” he elaborated.

“From a personal point of view, I hope he keeps going for another couple of years. But we will just have to wait and see. He is the only one who will make that call. And he likes to sort of build the drama a little bit as well. So I wouldn't expect a decision anytime soon,” the Australian batting stalwart continued.

“I know fans probably want to see him batting a little bit higher in the order. But that [the knee surgery] is why we have had to manage him a little bit and he only comes in at the back end. But there has been no one better in being able to come in and hit the ball so cleanly from ball one than MS. He has been phenomenal,” he underlined.

Earlier, Michael Hussey revealed the shocking episode when MS Dhoni decided to hand over the baton of CSK's captaincy to Ruturaj Gaikwad ahead of the start of the 2024 season of the IPL.

MS Dhoni has been associated with CSK since its inception in 2008.

During his long 14-year stint as captain of the Chennai-based side, he guided them to five IPL titles, including last year when CSK joined Mumbai Indians atop the list of the most successful teams in the elite T20 competition.

Michael Hussey stated that MS Dhoni's decision to step down from CSK's captaincy left him in shock. In addition to him, other cricket pundits and fans were also surprised by his move.

“MS sort of announced that he was not going to be attending the pre-tournament captains meeting. And we're like, ‘Oh, no. What's going on?'. He said Ruturaj was going to be captain from then on. So it was a little bit of a shock to start with but it has been managed really well,” Michael Hussey said on ESPNCricinfo.

“I know Stephen Fleming [head coach] had been working closely with Ruturaj in the lead-up to the tournament. In fact, he has been grooming him for a couple of years now. We have sort of known for a little while that he was the right man to take over the job when MS decided to step aside,” the former Australian batter added.

“MS wanted to still be here while the new captain took over, to try to help him along the way and sort of mentor him a little bit. So that's worked really well as well. And obviously, Stephen Fleming is a great role model for him [Gaikwad] as well. So it's been quite seamless actually,” Michael Hussey mentioned.

“He is a great guy, Ruturaj, very calm. He is a good thinker of the game. I mean it was always going to be a massive challenge for him, you know, how do you follow someone like MS Dhoni – it was going to be tough. But he has done a great job. He has been really calm and measured on the field. I think he will just get better and better the more he does it and the more support we keep around him. From my point of view, the pleasing thing is, it has not affected his batting at all either. He has performed extremely well with the bat. So it has been really good so far,” he explained.