New Delhi: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of Chennai Super Kings, credited the team’s dynamics for maintaining an awesome record in the IPL where they made play-offs of all nine editions they have played so far.
“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, Ravichandran 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.
