Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen criticized MS Dhoni’s decision of sending himself at no.7 even though the match situation demanded him up in the batting order during the match against Rajasthan Royals. Eventually, CSK lost that match by five wickets.
Kevin Pietersen said that CSK might have won the match. Faf du Plessis had accelerated his innings towards the end but he lost his wicket at a crucial stage. MS Dhoni took time to settle in but when he started firing in the last over the match already had gone from their hand.
“When you see how close they went, Du Plessis started to go, then MS Dhoni started hitting at the end and then they lost by only 16 runs,” Kevin Pietersen told Star Sports during a post-match analysis show.
Pietersen pointed out that CSK had a lack of intent to win the game. He highlighted that CSK batsmen should have smacked boundaries in the place of scoring single and double.
“So we were talking about a 4 or 5-over period when they were just knocking it around, knocking it around and running silly singles. They could have caught the game up there with a little bit of intent. They could have easily knocked this score off. If you need 20 in the last over, you can win this game,” he added.
MS Dhoni’s statement:
On sending himself at no. 7, MS Dhoni had said that they wanted to ‘try a few different things’ because it early in the tournament. He also added that if it didn’t work, they could go back to what their strength is.
“We want to try a few different things, like sending Sam or Jadeja. That’s something we haven’t done for a very long time and this allows us to do that at the start of the tournament,” MS Dhoni said in the post-match presentation.
Kevin Pietersen reacts to MS Dhoni’s strategy:
But MS Dhoni’s statement didn’t go very well for Kevin Pietersen. He said that it was advisable to stick to the team’s strengths and not get into too much experimentation in a tournament like IPL, which ‘can bite’ back ‘very, very quickly’. The former England cricketer also added that he was not buying into Dhoni’s defensive approach.
“It’s not about experiments, saying ‘oh it’s early on in the tournament’. Let me tell you, T20 cricket can bite you very, very quickly. You can end up losing five games on the go very quickly and then you can end up thinking ‘oh my goodness, are we actually going to get into the finals?’. I am not buying into this nonsense,” Pietersen maintained.
Meanwhile, CSK had won the IPL 2020 opener match against MI. They will play their next match against DC on Friday.