But it was not a happy occasion for the 39-year old his team lost by seven wickets and are now bottom of the table, with just four games of the regular season to be played. Their play-off hopes for this year are all but over, and Dhoni himself has come in for more than his fair share of criticism.
It was a disappointing night all round for CSK who won the toss and decided to bat, only to stumble to 56/4 when Dhoni was joined at the crease by Ravindra Jadeja.
But, whereas in his heyday Dhoni would have picked up the momentum and scored quickly, the 2020 version of the former Indian captain is a shadow of the player that he used to be in his pomp. He scored 28, but only at a run a ball, and found the boundary just twice. Instead he gave two Indian leg spinners, Shreyas Gopal and Rahul Tewatia, the respect reserved to top-class international bowlers, and, by the time he was run out by Jofra Archer, CSK had only amassed 107 runs.
Jadeja and Kedhar Jadav managed to add 18 more, but 125 was hardly a competitive score.
Dhoni and his men had brief hopes of victory when they had the Rajasthan Royals at 28/3, but then an unbeaten stand of 98 between Jos Buttler, who made 70, and Steve Smith, who finished unbeaten on 26, took the match away from them, and they were beaten with more than two overs to spare.
Afterwards, Dhoni was accused by commentators of tactical rigidity, refusing to introduce his own spinners, Jadeja and Piyush Chawla into the game until it was too late for them to have any impact on proceedings.
Having already announced his retirement from the international game, this years IPL was the first cricket that Dhoni had played in over a year. Some of his many fans are now thinking that perhaps it is time he hung up his gloves altogether.