Chennai Super Kings returned to winning ways under the captaincy of MS Dhoni in the IPL 2022. CSK defeated SunRisers Hyderabad to clinch two crucial points in this stage of the competition to keep their hopes alive for the top four.
File photo of MS Dhoni in Indian Premier League (Courtesy: PTI)
HIGHLIGHTS
- CSK returned to winning way with MS Dhoni as their captain
- CSK won the game with strong batting performances from their openers
- Dhoni said that fans might see a much improved performance from, Jadeja in the next matches
MS Dhoni on Sunday said that Ravindra Jadeja knew that he was going to be the captain last season and had enough time to prepare. In a lengthy post match interview after the Chennai Super Kings vs SunRisers Hyderabad game, Dhoni delved into the matter of captaincy change.
He said that CSK’s star all-rounders mind was overworking and he wasn’t able to relax. Dhoni was of the opinion that Chennai needed Jadeja’s services as a batsman, bowler and a fielder at this juncture of the tournament and insinuated that the fans might get to see a much better version of the all rounder going forward in the tournament.
“I think Jadeja knew last season he’d be captaining this year. For the first two games, I oversaw his work and let him be later. I insisted he’d take his own decisions and responsibility for them. You cannot spoon-feed everything to them. Once you become captain, it means a lot of demands come in and can affect the player’s performance and occupy their mind which I think was the case with him. I think captaincy burdened his prep and performances, it meant he could not go with the bat and ball with the same intensity, we had a deep-midwicket fielder,” Dhoni said, before adding that he would love to have Jadeja – the batter, bowler and the fielder.
Chennai Super Kings won their game in a dominant fashion in Dhoni’s return to captaincy. First they put up a mammoth 202 runs after being sent to bat first and then returned to defend the target by 13 runs. Openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway set the stage with a massive 182-run partnership and CSK kept on ticking the boxes from there on.
MS Dhoni was himself not as successful as he would liked it to be, first failing to make an impact with the bat after promoting himself up the order and then later dropping a regulation catch of opposition captain Kane Williamson.
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