Chennai Super Kings lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore by 13 runs at Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune on Wednesday night. Chasing 174, CSK were limited to 160/8 despite Devon Conway's 56 off 37, courtesy Harshal Patel (3/35) and Glenn Maxwell (2/22).
CSK skipper MS Dhoni, who was playing his 200th IPL match for the side, feels that the target was gettable but the batsmen let the team down. Despite getting a good start, CSK faltered in the chase towards the end.
“We did well to restrict them to 170-odd runs. I felt in the latter half it (the surface) could be better and we had to get off to a good start, everything was up to the mark and what let us down was the batsmanship,” said Dhoni after the match.
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“When you are chasing you know what is required and at times you have to curb your instinct and see what really the situation is demanding rather than playing your shots. The shot selection could have been better towards the end.”
CSK got off to a blazing start by scoring 54 runs without the loss of any wicket in 6.3 overs. But once Ruturaj Gaikwad got out, wickets fell in tandem for CSK as the side lacked partnerships. The eventual result saw it ending 13 runs short of RCB’s total.
“We had a good start and had wickets in hand, the surface kept getting better but we lost wickets at regular intervals. We can look back at some of the shots, if we take care of those things… Chasing is about calculations and batting first is more about instinct. Ultimately as a batter or bowler you are in the middle and you have to decide, I don't think that was a problem today,” Dhoni said.
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A defeat against RCB on Wednesday means CSK’s playoff hopes are all but over. They have only six points to their credit from 10 games. With four matches more to play in the league stage, they can have a maximum of 14 points which won’t be sufficient for them to book a final-four berth.
“We need to keep looking about what went wrong, it is easy to get distracted with how many points you have, it is the mistakes and it is the process that matters rather than where you are positioned in the points table,” concluded a dejected captain Dhoni.
