Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni is known for his instincts on the field and off it. Besides inheriting an indomitable spirit, he backs every decision he takes. On Sunday, it wasn’t different after his team lost the IPL final against the Mumbai Indians by 41 runs at the Eden Gardens.
He said that his bowlers gave away 15 to 20 extra runs that made a lot of difference to the end result. In a big IPL final, Dhoni wanted to take a chance by chasing in the match. By his own admission, CSK did start the first over in a very big way.
They dismissed Mumbai’s opening batsman Parthiv Patel through a brilliant run-out. But from second over onwards, Rohit Sharma took the momentum away from CSK when he scored 16 runs from Mohit Sharma’s over.
According to Dhoni, this is where Mumbai took the initial advantage. “The second over of the match gave Mumbai their moment. While chasing, we didn’t get that many runs in first six overs, which also made a difference,” Dhoni said during the post-match ceremony.
After losing on a good wicket at the Eden Gardens, Dhoni also suggested that his team needs to get back to the drawing board and plan a few things before coming back strongly into the IPL next year.
This is the sixth time, CSK played the final and this is seventh time a league topper has missed on winning the title after the Rajasthan Royals won the tournament after topping the league stages in the inaugural year (2008).
“We played well as a team and some of the individual did produce match winning performances. But individual performances could have been better. We have to get back to the drawing board to comeback strongly next year,” the CSK captain added.
Dhoni also admitted that losing to Mumbai after all the hard work wasn’t easy, but he still had smile on his face to tell the world that winning and losing are parts of the game. And of course, missing Brendon McCullum was another big blow for the side just head of these important games
