The revamped Chennai Super Kings defeated the Lucknow Super Giants for the second time this season, with MS Dhoni taking center stage, on Monday, April 14. Dhoni made a late appearance in a fierce run chase at the Ekana stadium on Monday, scoring 26 off just 11 deliveries. Even though Rishabh Pant scored 63 runs to lead his team, Chennai went back to winning ways with a 5-wicket victory in Lucknow.
MS Dhoni on win
"It's good to win a game. When you play a tournament like this, you want to win games. Unfortunately the [earlier] matches didn't go our way for whatever reasons. There can be lots of reasons. It's good to have a win on our side. Gives confidence to the whole team and helps us improve in areas we want to improve. We all knew that when it doesn't come your way in cricket, God makes it very tough, and it was a tough game. If you see the powerplay, whether it was the combination or the conditions, we were struggling with the ball. And then we weren't able to get the start we wanted as a batting unit. Also the fall of wickets. We keep losing wickets at the wrong time to some extent. One of the reasons could be that the Chennai wicket is slightly on the slower side. When we have played away from home, the batting unit has done slightly better," said Dhoni at the post-match presentation.
"Maybe we need to play on wickets that are slightly better so that it'll give the batters confidence to play their shots. You don't want to play timid cricket. We were putting too much pressure on Ash. He was bowling two overs in the first six. We made changes and this looks like a better attack. As a bowling unit we've done well. As a batting unit, we can do better. Roles and responsibilities - that's what we talk about. If you get off to a good start, and you're someone who can play through the innings, then why not. I think he batted really well today. He has been with us for quite a few years (Shaik Rasheed). This year he has been batting really well in the nets against both pacers and spinners. It's just the start. He has the capability to dominate with authentic shots. Even today I was like - "why are they giving me the award?" Noor bowled really well," he added.
With two wickets in his three overs, Ravi Bishnoi was Lucknow's best bowler. To everyone's amazement, though, he did not bowl again after the thirteenth over as MS Dhoni (26* off 11) and Shivam Dube (43* off 37) defeated Lucknow. Captain Rishabh Pant disclosed after his team's defeat that he had intended to bring Bishnoi in later because they wanted to go deep.
With Dube and Dhoni hammering it all over the park, the moment could not come. To get LSG back into the game, Bishnoi removed Ravindra Jadeja (7 off 11) and Rahul Tripathi (9 off 10) in the middle overs. However, considering his history of struggling to get off to a strong start against spin, Pant failed to bowl him early in Dhoni's innings. Dhoni helped his team cross the finish line with an undefeated 57-run stand off 28 balls with Dube. The wicketkeeper's glovework behind the stumps and gutsy knock earned him Player of the Match.