Indian Premier League : Dugout News
MS Dhoni has been one of the most loved captains of all time. The craze for his captaincy among fans is his skills and knowledge of using his bowlers and manipulating the field to set a batter.
Image credit: Josh Hazlewood : Brings Stability in Bowling side Josh Hazlewood :Same accuracy in white and red ball formatDhoni's same tactics to trap opposition batters
Such has been Dhoni over the time with spinners. He is one of the best users of spin to choke the batters. Something similar happened in a clash with Royal Challengers Bangalore yesterday. When Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis settled on the crease, M S Dhoni tweaked his bowling combination with Ravindra Jadeja and Moeen Ali alongside Maheesh Theekshana to dismiss five wickets in their 12 overs for 75 runs. Dhoni stuck with his trusted template of all time to win it in his favour.
CSK: Second team to be out of playoffs race
Chennai Super Kings suffered a 13-run defeat from Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 49th match of IPL 2022. They are still placed in the second last spot with 6 points after winning three out of 10 games. With four games left, even if they win it all, they will still land with 14 points, which will not be enough for the team to enter the playoffs. It is now impossible for CSK to reach the playoffs and have thus become the second team after Mumbai Indians to get out of the playoff race.
MS Dhoni, in a post-match conference, remarked, "We need to keep looking at what went wrong. It's easy to get distracted by how many points you have. It's the process that matters more than where you are positioned in the points table. If you take care of those things, then the points table will take care of itself."
Death-bowling masterclass by Hazlewood and Patel
Chennai Super Kings needed 56 runs in 30 balls with six wickets. The team looked in much control, especially after a stable inning played by Devon Conway as the opener. However, after the final strategic time out, the team lost the next three wickets for mere 25 runs. Harshal Patel was clinical in dismissing Ravindra Jadeja and set Moeen Ali to follow in his two consecutive overs. Josh Hazlewood had MS Dhoni caught at deep mid-wicket in the first ball of the 19th over. He performed with an economy of 4.75 against Super Kings, hard bowling lengths to bat on, whereas Harshal Patel won Player of the Match to scalp three wickets, conceding 35 runs.
Harshal Patel, in his performance, said, "When people are waiting for the slower balls, my hard length balls and my yorkers are released. Till now, this season I have not been able to bowl those but hopefully will do it in the business end of the tournament."