MS Dhoni Urges IPL to Improve Chepauk Pitch After CSK Break Losing Streak
Chennai Super Kings beat Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets to end their losing streak. Skipper MS Dhoni criticised the pitch at Chepauk after the match and urged the IPL organisers to prepare better wickets. Dhoni scored 26 runs in 11 balls to give the team victory. Lucknow captain Rishabh Pant scored 63 runs and admitted to making runs less on the pitch.
On Monday, Chennai Super Kings defeated Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets. However, after the match, CSK captain MS Dhoni asked the IPL organizers to prepare better wickets that encourages the players to play shots. Dhoni said that no team wants to play coward cricket. He was specifically referring to the pitch of Chepauk, the home ground of Chennai Super Kings, which has been their stronghold for many years, but this season this pitch has proved to be a nightmare for Chennai. CSK finally broke their five-match losing streak by defeating Lucknow. Dhoni made a significant contribution to this victory and scored 26 runs in just 11 balls to lead the team to victory.
Dhoni said after the match,
"One of the reasons could be that the Chennai wicket is a bit slow. When we play away from home, the batting unit has performed a little better. Maybe we need to play on wickets that are slightly better so that the batsmen have the confidence to play their shots. You don't want to play sneaky cricket. As a bowling unit, we have done well. We can do even better as a batting unit. "
He further said,
"It's good to win the game. When you play a tournament like this, you want to win the game. Unfortunately, the previous games didn't go our way. There can be many reasons for this. It's good to have a win in our favour. It gives confidence to the whole team and helps us improve on the areas we want to improve. "
Lucknow captain Rishabh Pant ended his poor form streak in this match and scored 63 runs in 49 balls. "I am feeling better with every game, but sometimes it is not good. I'm slowly getting into my rhythm, taking every game at once. "
Rishabh Pant also explained the reason behind not giving Ravi Bishnoi the last over, even though he was his best bowler in that match. Pant said, "We discussed with many players, but we could not take them to the Bishnoi depth, it could not happen today to bowl to them in the last over. "
Pant also admitted that on a pitch like the Ekana Stadium, his team fell short of a few runs. "We think as a team we were 10 to 15 runs short, when the pace was with us, we kept losing wickets consistently. We had to keep building partnerships. The wicket was stopping a bit, but I think we could have scored 15 more runs. "