MS Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings captain, revealed the reason behind him batting at No.7 despite CSK chasing a mammoth 217 against Rajasthan Royals (RR) in their second IPL 2020 encounter on Tuesday.
Sanju Samson’s blistering 32-ball-74 and Jofra Archer’s late 8-ball-27* powered RR to 216, the highest total so far in IPL 2020. CSK, however, never quite got going in the chase and were reduced to 114-5 in the 14th over when Dhoni walked in.
With three consecutive sixes in the final over, including one that went out of the ground, Dhoni DID make it interesting 👀#IPL2020 https://t.co/p28q4xpCeu
— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) September 22, 2020
Though Faf du Plessis scored 72 at a strike-rate of nearly 200, he lacked support as CSK fell 16 short of RR’s total despite Dhoni’s hat-trick of sixes in the final over.
When quizzed after the match about his decision to bat below Sam Curran and Kedar Jadhav, the former India captain said that he hadn’t “batted for a long time” before adding that he wanted to “try different things”.
“I haven’t batted for a long time,” Dhoni said. “[The] 14-day quarantine doesn’t help. Also wanted to try different things, give opportunities to Sam. Have the opportunity to try different things. If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to your strengths. Faf adapted very well.
“Without singling out anyone, the controllables … not giving no-balls, it’s one area which maybe would have restricted them – 200 would have been very good.”
MS Dhoni on where #CSK can improve.#IPL2020 pic.twitter.com/KEj2vUWaWp
— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) September 22, 2020
“With 217 on the board, we needed a very good start which was not the case. Steve and Samson batted very well. Need to give credit to their bowlers. Once you’ve seen the first innings, you know the length to bowl. Their spinners did well to bowl away from the batsman. Our spinners made the error to bowl too full. If we would’ve maybe restricted them to 200, it would’ve been a good game.”
