Former India opener Gautam Gambhir has slammed Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper MS Dhoni for demoting himself in the batting order during the daunting run chase against Rajasthan Royals (RR) in Sharjah on Tuesday (September 22).
Chasing 217 to win, Dhoni came out to bat in the 14th over at No. 7 and remained unbeaten on 29 off 17 balls but his side lost the game by 16 runs.
See Also: MS Dhoni explains why he came to bat at No. 7 while chasing 217 against RR
Gambhir was left baffled by Dhoni’s decision making as the latter sent the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sam Curran before him.
"I was a bit surprised, to be honest. MS Dhoni batting at No. 7? And sending Gaikwad before him, Sam Curran before him. Makes no sense to me. In fact, you should be leading from the front. And this is not what you call leading from the front. Batting at number seven when you're chasing what 217? The game was over. Faf was probably the lone warrior," ESPNCricinfo quoted Gambhir as saying.
"Yes, you can talk about MS Dhoni's last over when he hit three sixes, but it was of no use, to be honest. It was just all personal runs. See, if someone else would have done this, some other captain had batted number seven, he would have got a lot of flak. It is MS Dhoni - probably why people don't talk about it. When you don't have Suresh Raina, you're making people believe that Sam Curran is better than you. You're making people believe that Ruturaj Gaikwad, Curran, Kedar Jadhav, Faf du Plessis, M Vijay, all these guys, are better than you," he added.
Initially, Dhoni had a tough time at the crease as he scored just 9 runs off his first 12 deliveries. But in the final over when CSK needed 38 to win, the captain was able to smash 20 runs, including three sixes.
"There is nothing wrong if you end up getting out early, at least start leading from the front, trying to inspire the team as well. What you did in the last over, probably if you'd done that coming in at No. 4 or 5, alongside Faf, you could have made a game out of it. But probably there was no such intent to make a game out of it," said Gambhir.
"I thought that after the first six overs, they had literally given up on the game. And probably MS was trying to get back into that match rhythm of batting till the end and get some runs under his belt so he can actually play these kind of innings in the coming games. You've got to be in the present, try and win each game (if) possible. I thought there was no intent to win the game and they were never there in the chase. You can talk about Faf's innings, but Faf initially was struggling big time. So I thought it was an absolute miscalculation, probably not the right captaincy as well. This is not how you ask someone like MS to lead the side," he further remarked.
Apart from Faf du Plessis (72 off 37 balls), none of the Chennai batsmen managed to touch the 35-run mark. Earlier, Royals rode on Sanju Samson’s 32-ball 74 to post a mammoth 216/7 in 20 overs.
CSK will face Delhi Capitals (DC) in their next game on September 25 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
