IPL 2016: 5 reasons why Rising Pune Supergiants have failed this season
MS Dhoni created Indian Premier League (IPL) history in the recently completed edition of the tournament. It was not the sort of history that Dhoni fans would have hoped for as the Indian limited-overs captain failed to lead his side into the IPL playoffs for the first time ever.
In fact, the Dhoni-led Rising Pune Supergiants finished just above bottom-placed Kings XI Punjab in the seventh position, thus avoiding the wooden spoon. After winning the first match of the IPL against defending champions, Mumbai Indians, Pune won only four more games until the end of the season.
Ajinkya Rahane's form with the bat was one of the very few silver linings in what was a season to forget for Pune fans. Here we take a look at what went wrong for Dhoni's side:
#1 – Injury plight
There is no doubt which team was the most affected by injuries during the 2016 IPL. Pune lost the mercurial Kevin Pietersen early on in the season to a calf muscle injury. Before the RPS camp could recover from the Pietersen setback, they lost opener Faf du Plessis after he broke his finger and was ruled out for six weeks.
Steve Smith and Mitchell Marsh were later ruled out of the tournament due to a wrist injury and a side strain respectively. Even captain Dhoni and Rahane suffered bruises later on but kept playing despite the setbacks after losing out on their main players.
Maybe Pune's fortunes would have been different had they not been affected by so many injuries. However, it has to be noted that even the replacements for the injured players did not perform well, that probably laid more emphasis on Pune missing out on key players.