Chennai Super Kings (CSK) bowling coach Eric Simons has lavished praise on West Indian all-rounder Dwayne Bravo, who has been phenomenal for CSK so far in the ongoing IPL 2018, with both bat and the ball.

Simons termed Bravo, who is one of the most demandable T20 players, as the "mentor" to all young bowlers at the CSK camp.

On the eve of CSK's next IPL match against Mumbai Indians (MI) in Pune, Simons told PTI, “Bravo is massively important from two perspectives. No 1, he is an incredibly experienced cricketer. We were dead and buried against Mumbai last time we played and he was one of the great T20 innings I’ve ever see, I didn’t think we are going to win it. Another thing is his ability to control in those middle overs when we need some control, bowl to his field, is wonderful to watch.”

The former Indian bowling coach further said of Bravo, “The number of balls he bowls that go down the ground for one or to the square for one he exactly knows what's going to happen is hugely important. And then the third component, which you don’t witness, is the amount of mentoring he does for our bowlers. He does a lot of talking, a lot of advising.”

Meanwhile, Simons noted that the CSK bowlers need to improve their game ‘to give their batsmen less to chase’ in this “long” T20 league.

He added, “There are certain lengths we would like to improve on, lines we would like to improve on and work on them all the time but we also very aware of the fact that this is a long tournament and we are not even near the halfway mark yet. And I feel, we are improving but we would like to give our batsmen less to chase.”

While commenting on Captain MS Dhoni, Simons has termed him as a very effective player in IPL and also lauded his spectacular effort against the RCB in their last IPL 2018 match.

The CSK bowling coach signed off by saying, “MS might look unorthodox but he is very effective, that's the way he plays. He reads the game. He senses where the game changes. Against the RCB the other night, it was all about reading the game, understanding who were their key bowlers and who is going to target at the back end and that's what MS is about.”