Gautam Gambhir, the former Kolkata Knight Riders skipper, has slammed MS Dhoni’s decision to bat lower down the order in the game between RR vs CSK IPL 2020 clash in Sharjah.
Rajasthan Royals notched up 216/7 thanks to aggressive knocks by Sanju Samson, Steve Smith and Jofra Archer. A total of 17 sixes were hit, with Samson hitting nine while Archer and Smith hit four sixes. In response, Chennai Super Kings were undone by a superb spell of three wickets in the middle overs by Rahul Tewatia. However, what was surprising was that MS Dhoni did not promote himself up the order in the chase. Sam Curran and Ruturaj Gaikwad, playing in his first match, were sent ahead of Dhoni but they fell in quick succession. Kedar Jadhav came ahead of Dhoni but he also failed to get going.
Dhoni came in at No.7 and by that time, the required rate was over 15 runs per over. Faf du Plessis and Dhoni struck some big hits towards the end but it proved to be too late. In the post-match presentation, Dhoni explained the reasons behind his decision to not come higher up the order. “I haven't batted for a long time. 14-day quarantine doesn't help (why he isn't batting higher). Also wanted to try different things, give opportunities to Sam. Have the opportunity to try different things,” Dhoni said.
However, these comments have not impressed Gautam Gambhir, the former India batsman and Kolkata Knight Riders skipper. Gambhir said it made no sense for Dhoni to come in so lower down the order in the chase. “MS Dhoni batting at No. 7? And sending [Ruturaj] Gaikwad before him, Sam Curran before him. Makes no sense to me. In fact you should be leading from the front. And this is not what you call leading from the front. Batting at No. 7 when you're chasing what... 213 [217]? The game was over. Faf was probably the lone warrior. Yes, you can talk about MS Dhoni's last over [when he hit three sixes], but it was of no use to be honest. It was just all personal runs,” Gambhir told in ESPNCricinfo’s show T20 Time Out
Lacking Intent
Gambhir also said that the way how the match panned out, there was seriously no intent shown by Chennai Super Kings towards the end. “There is nothing wrong if you end up getting out early, at least start leading from the front, trying to inspire the team as well. What you did in the last over, probably if you'd done that coming in at No. 4 or 5, alongside Faf, you could have made a game out of it. But probably there was no such intent. I thought that after the [first] six overs, they had literally given up on the game. And probably MS was trying to get back into that match rhythm of batting till the end and get some runs under his belt so he can actually play these kinds of innings in the coming games,” Gambhir said.
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 "MS Dhoni CSK IPL 2020 vs RR")
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