On their return to the IPL, the Chennai Super Kings have stormed into the play-offs of the on-going season of the IPL and this is their ninth appearance at the stage. Captain cool MS Dhoni believes that it was his team’s process for in place to achieve this feat.
CSK, who have qualified for the knockout stages at second spot this season, will play the table table toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad on Tuesday in Qualifier 1 and the captain insists that process once again needs to be in place.
“We have a set of people who are very close to the players that makes it very easy for the captain. Also we have a really good team. Right from the first edition, we kept adding players and they kept performing – Ashwin, Bollinger, Mohit. The big challenge will be in two years when most of the players won’t be around. We like to do the process right because that’s what gives you the result,” Dhoni said.
“I remember the finals, where it went wrong: you need to remember where it went wrong. On that particular day you have to be at the best because everyone wants to win. All of those things matter,” he said.
In their final league stage match, CSK beat the Kings XI Punjab by five wickets after they chased down a target of 154. Dhoni, who sent Harbhajan Singh and Deepak Chahar up the order in a surprise move, said it was to throw the opposition off guard.
“If you see the bowling line up it was swinging a bit. In a game like this you want to take a lot of wickets while it is swinging. So with Bhajji and Chahar going in – it creates a bit of chaos. With proper batsmen the bowlers are consistent, somehow to lower order players they try the bouncers, off-cutters, etc.” Dhoni explained.
Meanwhile, losing captain and former teammate of Dhoni at CSK, R Ashwin was understandably disappointed with his team’s performance and said that KXIP were about 30 runs short of the par score in Pune.
“Few tough days at the office now. We didn’t bat well, we lost too many wickets early. Karun batted well but we were 20-30 below par. We put down a catch – that’s been our story,” Ashwin said.
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