MS Dhoni
On a sluggish Abu Dhabi track on Monday night at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Rajasthan Royals' spinners - Rahul Tewatia and Shreyas Gopal - picked two wickets between themselves for 32 runs with 23 dots which helped them restrict Chennai Super Kings for a below-par 125 for five. Yet, MS Dhoni, who sole aim was to out bowl the Royals, used only one over of spin in the first 12 overs before bringing in Piyush Chawla. Rajasthan eventually won the match by seven wickets with 15 balls to spare. Dhoni, later explaining his move, said that there was not much for the spinners on the track as there were the pacers.
"There was a bit for the fast bowlers and the reason I brought Jadeja was to see how much it was stopping and it didn't as much as the first innings. So I went with the fast bowlers. I don't think the spinners got as much bite. It's not always supposed to go your way. We have to see if the process was wrong. Result is a by-product of the process, but the fact still remains that if you're focused on the process then the undue pressure of result doesn't enter the dressing room," said Dhoni.
The pace pair of Jos Hazlewood and Deepak Chahar bowled their four overs each at the start of Royals' chase, picking three wickets between themselves that reduced them to 28 for three in the fifth over. But Steve Smith and Jos Buttler dug deep to stitch a 98-run stand and rescue the Royals from a poor start.
"We're trying to address that. You don't want to do too much chop and change because after 3-4-5 games you won't be sure of anything. Insecurity is something you don't want to prevail in the dressing room," Dhoni added.
The defeat pushed CSK to the bottom of the table once again, leaving them with six points in 10 games and the playoffs seeming far from impossible now.
"It's fair enough [the criticism for not playing youngsters], this season we weren't there. Maybe we didn't see as much spark from some of our youngsters. Maybe going forward we bring them in and they play without pressure," Dhoni said before signing off.
