Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni has been dealing with knee discomfort since the start of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2023) season. In the CSK training sessions, Dhoni has been repeatedly spotted wearing a knee cap while during live matches, the wicketkeeper-batter has had some trouble while running between the wickets, which was also seen during the Men in Yellow's match against the Rajasthan Royals (RR) on April 12 (Wednesday).
After CSK's game against RR on Wednesday, the Yellow Army's coach Stephen Flemming confirmed Dhoni's battle with knee discomfort but lauded the professionalism of the franchise's poster boy and leader.
"He is nursing a knee injury, which you can see in some of his movement, which is hindering him somewhat. But still what you saw today is a great player for us. His fitness has always been very professional," Flemming said.
"He comes a month before the tournament starts, so he doesn't get the opportunity to do a lot (prior to that). He will stay fit, they will do some netting in Ranchi, but his main pre-season is done a month before when he comes to Chennai. And he works his way back into match-form and I think you can still see he's playing pretty well. So we never have any doubts about the way he manages himself and he always gets himself up to speed," the CSK coach added.
Dhoni has performed exceptionally well both as the captain and as a batter for the Yellow Army this season. Against the Royals, Dhoni remained unbeaten on 32 runs off 17 balls but failed to take his team to the promised land. The CSK captain highlighted the lack of strike rotation in the middle overs as one of the reasons behind the team's defeat.
"I think in the middle overs we needed a bit more strike rotation, there wasn't much for the spinners but they had experienced spinners and we could not rotate strike. It was not that difficult and the ownership should come from the batters. It was good that we could reach striking distance as we were the last pair. It really affects NRR when you get to the last phase of the tournament," Dhoni said after the game.
Overall, the wicketkeeper-captain has scored 58 runs in three innings at a tremendous strike rate of 215.
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