MS Dhoni believed that the Chennai Super Kings struggled against the Rajasthan Royals in their most recent match because they were losing wickets too early in their innings. The Arun Jaitley Stadium hosted the match on Tuesday, May 20, and CSK lost by six wickets.
The captain of CSK praised Dewald Brevis’s innings pace. But he thought it cost them to lose wickets early on.
“If you look at the amount of runs we had put on the board, it was very good, but you got to see the wickets column as it puts pressure on the lower-middle order that you might not bat 20 overs. I think Brevis’ innings was very nice, he was taking chances, and I feel the run-rate was nice, that’s the phase we want to improve slightly. I felt the run-rate was up but where we lacked was losing 1-2 extra wickets.”
MS Dhoni
MS Dhoni Wants CSK to Control Runs in First Six Overs
MS Dhoni also noted that there was room for improvement in terms of restricting the flow of runs during the powerplay. Anshul Kamboj’s bowling in the first six overs (1/21 in three overs) was also commended by him.
He (Kamboj) is someone who doesn’t get swing, but he gets some seam movement, the ball hits you harder than the speed gun suggests, he has taken the responsibility and he is someone who can bowl good yorkers. That’s (powerplay) one area where there’s a hole for us, we don’t want to give away too many runs in the first six overs. He has bowled 3 overs in the powerplay, which I feel is tougher when the ball isn’t moving much and when the batters are well set.”
MS Dhoni
CSK were unable to defend the 187 runs they scored in the first innings. RR always had the advantage during the pursuit because they gave up 65 during the powerplay. With the exception of Kamboj, every bowler for CSK gave up runs at an economy rate of 10. By the eighth over of the first innings, CSK had lost half of their team.
