Chennai Super Kings faced their third defeat of IPL 2023 on April 27 in Jaipur when they failed to chase down 203 against Rajasthan Royals. CSK once again depended more on their middle order than the captain MS Dhoni himself and paid the price as well for their questionable plans. MS Dhoni, despite being in great form, came late in the batting order with the likes of Shivam Dube, Moeen Ali and Ravindra Jadeja getting chances before him as well. And, CSK coach Stephen Fleming and Dwayne Bravo opened up on their tactics.
“The set roles are very important. (Ajinkya) Rahane has been great for us at No. 3. We don’t mess with things that are going well. It was just today we came up against a team that took the pace off the ball. We couldn’t get any real momentum in the first six overs. Devon Conway, who is in outstanding form, couldn’t get underway. The rhythm of the innings was slow. When we tried to catch the game up, we made mistakes,” he said during the post-match press conference.
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Bravo also shared that this is potentially MS Dhoni’s final IPL season, the CSK captain is happy to sit back and give the youngsters to such high-pressure scenarios so that they could learn. The biggest positive was Dube, who started IPL 2023 with 19 off 18 balls and was criticised for it, but he has since emerged to score 236 runs from 8 matches including three fifties and a highest of 95 not out against RCB as well.
“That is the position he has to bat. Everyone is batting higher than him and he takes that responsibility and ownership upon himself to bat lower down the order because the likes of Jadeja, Rayudu, and Dube, he wants to give these guys as many opportunities as possible. He is happy to just play the finishing role,” Bravo had said in a press conference.
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“The CSK morale is very high, and that has nothing to do with the results. We are a team that is normally very level irrespective of whether we perform well or not. But it is always better when we are doing well. So far, we have started the season on a positive note and we just have to keep the momentum and keep winning cricket games. Tomorrow’s game against RR is going to be a very hard game,” he concluded.
