MSD and boys back at work

Enigmatic former India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and some of his Chennai Super Kings teammates arrived here on Friday for a short training camp ahead of the IPL in UAE, where the World Cup-winning star will make his eagerly-awaited return to competitive cricket after a prolonged sabbatical.

Apart from Dhoni, others who have reached the city for the week-long camp beginning on Saturday at the M A Chidambaram stadium are Suresh Raina, Deepak Chahar, Piyush Chawla and Kedar Jadhav.

The three-time IPL champions posted pictures of Dhoni and other players arriving in Chennai on their social media page.

Dhoni has not played since India's semifinal exit from the ODI World Cup last year in July and his comeback is a highly anticipated sub-plot of this year's IPL, which starts on September 19.

All the players, except all-rounder

Ravindra Jadeja, are expected to participate in the camp.

A CSK official said Jadeja would be missing training owing to personal reasons and would join the squad before its departure the tournament venue.

All the players would be subjected to two tests here and only if they return negative for coronavirus, they would be allowed to fly to Dubai, the official added.

The franchise has picked eight net bowlers from Tamil Nadu and they will also travel with the side to the UAE.

The Dhoni-led CSK had organised a camp from March 2 ahead of the originally scheduled March 29 start of the event before it was suspended owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

Dhoni had trained during that twoweek camp which attracted a few thousand fans too.