CSK batsmen let their bowlers down today: MS Dhoni
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in their latest clash against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). CSK restricted KKR to 167 with a disciplined bowling performance first, and were 99/1 at the 12-over mark. But a batting collapse meant that they ended up falling short of the target by a mere margin of 11 runs.
Stephen Fleming, head coach of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) stated after the loss against Kolkata Knight Riders a couple of hours ago that the failure of his side to achieve the target of 168 set by KKR might be a massive let-down to the bowlers, but the MS Dhoni-led side will not be having any issues in moving on from the defeat.
“The performances like today, with the experience we’ve got, we should put it away,” said Fleming. “Ideally, you want one batsman to bat through. If you give an opening to an IPL team, they’ve got quality players to take it. Today with Narine holding overs back, it made it very difficult in the end.”
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CSK were perfectly set to romp home until the 12th over, with Shane Watson and Ambati Rayudu being well-set. The next three overs went for only 14 and consisted of the wickets of both set batsmen.
Shane Watson scored a half-century against KKR today
“You are looking at players going on and making 75 or more and continue that partnership for five more overs, the game would have been a lot more different. KKR hung in there and put pressure on us. We couldn’t accelerate in the end. We are disappointed that we let it slip,” Fleming added.
CSK skipper MS Dhoni had the following to say in the post match presentation about where the chase went astray, “In the middle overs there was a phase where they bowled 2-3 good overs. If we batted better, and didn’t lose 2-3 wickets in a row,. We should’ve been careful in the first 5-6 overs.”
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Speaking on the performance of his bowlers, who kept KKR down to 167, Dhoni said, “Curran was really good with the ball, and I think we did well in general with the ball, but the batsmen let the bowlers down today.”
Dhoni added some further assessment as to how run-chases need to be approached by his batsmen going ahead in the tournament, “Rotation of strike was important, but I think there were hardly any boundaries in the final few overs, so we need to be innovative at the end when they are continuously hitting a back of a length. That’s where we need to adapt better with the bat and I don’t think we did that.”