Another Indian Premier League (IPL) game, another nail-biting ending. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) somehow keep finding new ways to win a contest while Rajasthan Royals would feel they were only a few runs shy of a possible triumph over the defending champions. Although MS Dhoni’s unforeseen intervention in the last over will be talked about for days to come, the CSK skipper reflected on his side’s narrow victory at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Dhoni’s men were hopeful of limiting the Royals around the 140-run mark after a stupendous display of bowling by the entire unit, which didn’t let even a single Rajasthan batsman cross the 30-run mark. Shardul Thakur was given the responsibility of bowling the last over and the speedster went on to concede 18 runs in the over, the costliest of the innings.
The 152-run target for Chennai looked like a challenging one as they lost wickets early in the innings, going 4 down for 24 with Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Suresh Raina and Kedar Jadhav all back in the dugout. It was a 95-run partnership between Ambati Rayudu and Dhoni that stabilised the innings for CSK before Ravindra Jadeja and Mitchell Santner remained unbeaten to overhaul the target.
“It was a very good game. Need to give credit to Rajasthan. They were slightly few runs short on what would’ve been a good score. But they put pressure on our batsmen and they were able to build pressure right to the end. Once you win games like this, you learn a lot out of it. It’s important to enjoy the win but also learn from the mistakes. It’s about a few hits. Have to see the ground here. It’s a very big ground and the outfield is fast,” Dhoni said while reflecting on the run chase.
“At the end of the day, individuals do commit mistakes. But the team has to take the blame if you’ve lost. Doesn’t matter if it was Shardul’s over or someone else’s over. Important to see if the batsmen batted well or whether the execution failed. We’ve got very good support here, thanks to them. Not to forget, one of my biggest innings came here. All games are big games,” the veteran wicket-keeper batsman added.
