‘Where we lacked was losing 1-2 extra wickets’

MS Dhoni felt that Chennai Super Kings faltered in their recently-concluded game against Rajasthan Royals was losing wickets too early in their innings. CSK ended up on the wrong side of the result by six wickets at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday, May 20. 

CSK’s skipper complimented Dewald Brevis’s pacing of his innings. However, he felt that losing wickets early on hurt them.

“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,” shared Dhoni during the post-match ceremony.

Don’t want to give away too many runs in the first six overs: Dhoni

Dhoni also pointed out that limiting the flow of runs within the powerplay was an aspect that had scope for improvement. He also praised Anshul Kamboj’s bowling in the first six overs (1/21 in three overs). 

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,” he added.

CSK were unable to defend the 187-run total they had posted in the first innings. Conceding 65 within the powerplay meant RR always had the upper hand during the chase. Every CSK bowler other than Kamboj conceded runs at an economy rate of 10. In the first innings, CSK had lost half their squad by the eighth over.

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