It isn’t the easiest task on the planet to bowl the last over to MS Dhoni, and especially when you have 17 to defend and the man is hitting it big.
Mohit Sharma held his nerves and used his experience to good effect against his former club.
Sharma bowled some really good yorkers and successfully defended the total. The yellow outfit made it a habit of chasing down totals in the last over.
Earlier Dwayne Bravo did it against Mumbai Indians, and Ravindra Jadeja found the ropes against Kolkata Knight Riders.
This time though, the veteran finisher came very close to sealing a win in his signature style. He had a quick chat at the end of the game.
Dhoni said the young spinner from Afghanistan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman was the difference between the sides. The Kings XI’ spinner conceded just 18 runs from his three overs.
“I think they bowled pretty well. Mujeeb was a great difference,” says MS Dhoni.
“In the second half I thought there would be dew, but there wasn’t much of it. Chris’ innings and Mujeeb’s bowling did it for them. It was a close one, which is important because it shows you’re competing. What are the boundaries we can omit? What are the easy deliveries that we can avoid? These are the things we need to work on.
Photo by: Deepak Malik / IPL/ SPORTZPICS
The skipper also backed Jadeja and said he would be getting opportunities to express himself. Dhoni feels there are a lot of areas which demands improvement.
“All the games have been close, which means the individuals in the team get to learn a lot, but yes, overall we need to improve. We have confidence in Jadeja. This is the time we can give him the opportunity to express himself. Raina at the top of the order, one left-hander, and if we can have Jadeja as a floater… so if we can just give him the opportunity, which we haven’t so far, and I hope he can come good.”
Dhoni said on the combination that can take the team over the finishing line.
On his back injury that saw him limping a bit while chasing the big total, he said,
“The back is pretty bad, but God has given me lot of power, and I don’t need to use my back a lot. My arms can do the job. It shouldn’t be too bad because I know what happened, and when you know the extent of the injury, you know how bad it really is.”
