Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper MS Dhoni on Wednesday (4th May) talked about the loss his side suffered against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Match 49 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 in Pune. He termed poor batting as the reason behind his side’s loss.
Dhoni-led CSK suffered their sixth loss of the IPL 15 as they were at the receiving end of a 13-run defeat at the hands of RCB. Bowling first, after winning the loss, the 'Men in Yellow' fought well after Faf du Plessis (38) and Virat Kohli (30) scored 62 runs for the opening partnership.
Maheesh Theekshana (3/27) and Moeen Ali (2/28) combined to pick 5 wickets together but a 42-run knock by Mahipal Lomror and finish by Dinesh Karthik (26*) helped RCB post a total of 173 runs.
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Chasing the target, Ruturaj Gaikwad (28) and Devon Conway (56) yet again provided a good start to their team and scored 52 runs for the opening partnership. But after that, they lost wickets at regular intervals and put themselves under pressure. Moeen Ali kept them in the hunt with his 34-run knock but in end the target was too much as they fell short of 13 runs.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, MS Dhoni said that they did well to restrict RCB to 170 runs but their batting department let them down.
"We did well to restrict them to 170 runs. What really let us down was the batsmanship. I feel especially when we are chasing; you know what's required on the board and what the bowlers are doing. At times you have to curb your instinct and try to see what the situation is demanding rather than just play your shot,” MS Dhoni said.
Dhoni admitted that they kept losing wickets at regular intervals despite a good start and had they batted better the situation would’ve been different.
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“If the batsmanship had been slightly better, maybe in the last few overs we wouldn't have needed many runs. We got off to a good start. We had wickets in hand and the wicket kept getting better. It's just that we kept losing wickets at regular intervals. If you take care of those things, chasing is more about calculation and batting first is more about instinct,” he said.
Dhoni said that they need to rectify what went wrong for them and they need to focus on the process and the points table will take care of itself.
“As a batter in the middle, you have to decide on those things. We need to keep looking at what went wrong. It's easy to get distracted by how many points you have. It's the process that matters more than where you are positioned in the points table. If you take care of those things, then the points table will take care of itself," he said.
CSK is next scheduled to face Delhi Capitals (DC) on Sunday (8th May) at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Mumbai. They need to win all their matches now if they have to fancy their chances of qualifying for the playoffs.
(India Today inputs)
