MS Dhoni Who Scored 18 Of 27 Wasn’t The Only One Who Struggled: Stephen Fleming

Oct 5, 2021 at 5:46 PM

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MS Dhoni Who Scored 18 Of 27 Wasn’t The Only One Who Struggled: Stephen Fleming

Stephen Fleming, Chennai Super Kings coach said that MS Dhoni’s slow innings on Monday against the Delhi Capitals was due to the conditions that were in offer in which batters from both teams struggled to score freely.

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni’s extraordinarily slow innings on Monday against the Delhi Capitals (DC) in the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) can be attributed to the difficult conditions that were on offer at the Dubai International Stadium, according to head coach Stephen Fleming.

MS Dhoni struck at 66.6, playing 10 dot balls and failed to hit a single six or four.
MS Dhoni struck at 66.6, playing 10 dot balls and failed to hit a single six or four. (Courtesy of BCCI)

Stephen Fleming: MS Dhoni Wasn’t The Only One Who Struggled

MS Dhoni managed to score just 18 runs from 27 balls, which is his slowest innings in the history of IPL (minimum 25 balls faced), as CSK ended up with only 136 runs for the loss of five wickets on the scoreboard batting first, which didn’t prove decisive in the end.
MS Dhoni struck at 66.6, playing 10 dot balls. He failed to hit a single six or a boundary in a knock that once again highlighted his lack of match practice. Stephen Fleming pointed out the fact that even eventual winners DC could only chase down the total with three wickets and two balls to spare.

“Well, he (Dhoni) wasn’t the only one who struggled,” Fleming said in the post-match press conference. “It was a difficult day for strokeplay. When 137 (136) is almost enough, I think it was a tough wicket to score big on in terms of the big shots. So both teams struggled with that towards the end of the innings. Sometimes you set your sights too high, [want] too many, and probably we were only 10-15 runs short of having a match-winning score,” said Stephen Fleming.

Stephen Fleming and MS Dhoni (Photo Source: Twitter)
Stephen Fleming and MS Dhoni (Photo Source: Twitter)
“So, the difficulty at the moment is to assess what the conditions are in all three different grounds and, batting first, getting a score that is par or just above. It was no lack of intent, it was just we had to stabilize after a couple of mistakes and then we were reasonably well-placed for 150. The other thing was their attack bowled very well in the last five overs. They were very smart, so it was tough going,” said the former New Zealand captain.

This was CSK’s second consecutive defeat after they lost to Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets.

Stephen Fleming Would Rather Have Two Defeats In The League Stage Than In The Playoffs

The loss on Monday cost them the top spot on the league table but both DC and CSK had qualified for the playoffs. Stephen Fleming said he would rather have the defeats in the league games rather than in the next stage of the tournament including eliminators.

“I’d rather have two defeats now than in the two semi-finals, if I ever had a wish list. Today was good, today was scrappy and I think there were a lot of mistakes on both sides. Sometimes, when you’ve qualified, I know there are one or two (things) that we were trying hard for… and things do change a little bit,” Stephen Fleming said.

Shimron Hetmyer (Photo: BCCI/IPL/ANI)
Shimron Hetmyer (Photo: BCCI/IPL/ANI)

“We try to work very hard on keeping the intensity. We’re on the back of three games in five days and a bit of travel, so there were probably clumsy mistakes from us, which was the most disappointing aspect, but in terms of the competition one of the key things is rebounding. Second, on the table [with] a chance to get to the top two is still a positive position, but we need to just maintain our intensity or get the flow and rhythm that we had before these two games,” said Stephen Fleming.

The things went right down to the wire, but Delhi Capitals (DC) managed to hold their nerve and beat Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by three wickets in the Match 50 of the IPL 2021 in Dubai on Monday. Shimron Hetmyer played a fine knock of 28* under pressure as DC, with their 10th win of the season, moved to the top of the points table.

CSK, who were put in to bat, made three changes to their team as Deepak Chahar, Dwayne Bravo and Robin Uthappa replaced KM Asif, Sam Curran, and Suresh Raina in the team. DC, on the other hand, brought in debutant Ripal Patel in place of Steve Smith.

Shikhar Dhawan had anchored the chase for much of the innings, but when he fell for 39 in a double-wicket over from Shardul Thakur, the Capitals were staring at defeat at 99 for 6 with two new batters in the middle. Shimron Hetmyer then took charge as he struck Dwayne Bravo for two fours in his first over.

He then smacked Josh Hazlewood for a crucial six, and finally watched from the non-striker’s end as Kagiso Rabada flicked one fine for four to seal a three-wicket win in the final over.

Brief Scores: Delhi Capitals 139/7 (Shikhar Dhawan 39, Shimron Hetmyer 28*; Shardul Thakur 2/13) beat Chennai Super Kings 136/5 (Ambati Rayudu 55*, Robin Uthappa 19; Axar Patel 2/18) by 3 wickets. 

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