IPL 2014: We wanted to take the game till last over - MS Dhoni

MS Dhoni

Following the victory against Rajasthan Royals at Ranchi, which confirmed their IPL 2014 play-off spot with 8 wins in 10 matches so far, Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni said that the Royals’ bowlers came back well to stretch his batsmen and thereby ending up making a match out of it.

Dhoni said: “What we wanted to do was take it to the end but they bowled well and made us stretch a bit.”

In reply to Royals’ 148, the Super Kings, despite losing Brendon McCullum and Suresh Raina to deliveries that didn’t deserve wickets, were motoring along quite well on a difficult wicket to bat on, courtesy of Dwayne Smith (44 off 35) and Faf du Plessis (38 off 39); Kevon Cooper, then, got rid of the West Indian in the 10th over to bring a late twist into the game.

The promotion of Ravichandran Ashwin to No. 5 slowed things down, with him scoring 14 off 16 deliveries at such a crucial point of time, and Du Plessis couldn’t find the big shots, as well. After James Faulkner yorked the South African T20 captain, it needed a special effort from Dhoni (26 off 16 balls) to turn things around.

Dhoni was in particular disappointed about his team’s bowling performance. On a wicket that assisted spin bowling, Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin went for 39 runs in 4 overs, picking up only one wicket.

He said: “On a wicket like this you shouldn’t really go for more than 10 or 12 runs; we had a few overs like that while bowling. It was difficult to score.”

On why Ashwin was promoted, with the likes of Ravindra Jadeja and himself waiting in the dug out, he said: “We wanted to give Ashwin more responsibility. He can bat well against spinners and can rotate the strike.”

Jadeja, who received the Man-of-the-Match award for a bowling spell of 4-0-18-2 and an unbeaten 6-ball 11 with the bat, said: “He (MS Dhoni) gives you a lot of confidence. He keeps saying you can do it if you play till the last ball. I always want to do something special in Ranchi.”