Dhoni Is Back But CSK Still Struggling!

From being one of the best performing teams in the history of IPL, Chennai Super Kings became one of the most easily beatable sides in the league this year. The fact that they lost five games back to back for the first time in the club’s history shows the same.

However, Chennai has finally managed to bounce back with the game against Lucknow today. The men in yellow were comprehensive with the ball and managed to restrict Lucknow to a below par total of 166.

In response, Chennai was very aggressive with the bat in the powerplay, which is something that we did not see from them this year. Thanks to a strong start in the powerplay, Chennai could break the back of the chase in the first six hours.

But things took a bad turn in the end for Chennai as they ended up losing wickets in clusters and needed 55 runs from the final five overs at one point. Hadn’t it been for a vintage Dhoni performance in the final stages Chennai would have again messed up this chase. 

Jadeja, Rahul Tirupati, Vijay Shankar and Shivam Dubey, were all scratchy with the bat. At one point, Dubey got stuck on 25 runs from 28 balls and almost ended up salvaging the chase on his own. But again, the veteran and established finisher Dhoni entered the scene and delivered a few lusty blows. 

As it turned out the 26 runs that Dhoni got from 11 balls proved to be the difference between the two sides as Chennai batters somehow found a way to mess up the chase after the strong powerplay. While this result might be satisfactory for Chennai after having lost five games back to back, there is still a lot of work to be done with the batting department.

The calmness and composure while chasing is completely missing in Chennai this year, and this point must be addressed if the team is to go any further in the league.