Chennai Super Kings’ elimination from the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 left a bitter taste in the mouths of fans as their dream of seeing MS Dhoni lifting the trophy at Chepauk remained unfulfilled. It isn’t yet known whether Dhoni plans to play another season, and in that respect, Royal Challengers Bengaluru players were slammed by certain former cricketers and experts over their failure to do the customary handshake with MS Dhoni. Many suggested that RCB players ‘over-celebrated’ their playoffs progression, prompting Dhoni to return to the dressing room without shaking hands. But, a video, contradicting the same, has emerged on social media.

A fan on social media claimed that Dhoni didn’t wait much before deciding to return to the dressing room without shaking RCB players’ hands, hitting out at those criticising the host team for ‘over-celebrating’.

I can understand he’s pissed but every other player came to shake hands.

Those players deserved to have that moment. When CSK won last year should they have gone around celebrating or gone to shake hands? https://t.co/MPXQ9zVOYo pic.twitter.com/TxKA2My6xD

— Pradhyoth (@Pradhyoth1) May 19, 2024

CSK batters haven’t even crossed the 30 yard circle and their fans are saying Dhoni waited 3 minutes for RCB celebrations to end for handshakes. So much misinformation is being spread on a large scale pic.twitter.com/ke8Gb0BxkJ

— Daksh (@82MCG_) May 19, 2024

After the handshake row, RCB players were criticised by the likes of Harsha Bhogle and Michael Vaughan for not giving MS Dhoni the respect he deserved.

“If there ever was a time for a group of players to show awareness. We don’t know but if that was MS Dhoni’s last game and those players have run around the ground doing handstands when all they need is to wait and meet the legend. We have to just go and shake his hands and then we can do a few cartwheels and handstands. That’s absolutely fine,” the former England captain said on Cricbuzz.

“This is an iconic player. I wouldn’t want to be an RCB player tomorrow morning thinking, ‘Wait a minute, MS Dhoni has announced his retirement and we didn’t have the decency to go and shake his hand first’,” he added.

Harsha, one of the most renowned commentators in the game, wasn’t happy seeing RCB players being lost in their celebrations, forgetting to shake Dhoni’s hands.

“It doesn’t matter. You win a World Cup final, you display your emotions, but you still shake hands with the opposition. That handshake is symbolic of the fact that (two teams are saying) ‘now, our antagonism is over. We did not give an inch to each other. Now it’s over,'” said Bhogle.