Australian all-rounder Shane Watson recently shared that he will be indebted to MS Dhoni and Fleming forever as they kept faith on him in the Indian Premier League. He further said that their ability to trust players and keep faith in them make Chennai Super Kings different from other franchises. He had won the title in the inaugural season with the Rajasthan Royals and later with CSK in 2018.

"You can go for 10 games not scoring runs and still get picked. Last season, thank you to M.S. Dhoni and Stephen Fleming for keeping the faith," he said in an Instagram live session on CSK's handle. "Every other franchise would have been 'You are gone. Thank you for coming, but you are sitting and you are running the drinks'."

He scored 117 off 57 balls with 11 fours and eight sixes in the 2018 final against Sunrisers Hyderabad to almost single-handedly take Chennai to victory. He almost repeated that in the next year against Mumbai Indians, scoring 80 off 59 but CSK failed to chase of Mumbai's total of 149. Watson had faced a rough patch in the early part of that season but did pretty well in the latter stages.

He said, "Through that period, unfortunately I felt like I was batting well but I was just not scoring runs and that kept going on and on. At some stage I was feeling after a couple of games that they are going to have to move me on, but they didn't.” "And then when things turned around, which I knew it would at some stage, I thanked MS and Fleming for keeping the faith, and they said there was never any doubt."

Shane Watson was expected to play for Chennai once again in the season opener for IPL 2020 against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on March 29. However, the coronavirus pandemic across the globe forced the start of the season to be pushed back to April 15 but keeping the current situation in mind, the tournament unlikely to take place this season.