Dhoni fined: The captain of Chennai Super Kings received a fine for slow over rate in their IPL 2021 season opener last night.
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Indian Premier League franchise Chennai Super Kings failed to defend 189 runs in their season opener against Delhi Capitals at the Wankhede Stadium last night.
Despite playing with six proper bowling options, Super Kings never really gave the impression of applying breaks against the opposition’s opening pair of Prithvi Shaw (72) and Shikhar Dhawan (85) as a 138-run opening partnership laid the foundation of a thumping victory which was achieved in the penultimate over.
With Super Kings were playing without their overseas bowling options in Lungi Ngidi and Imran Tahir, it would be interesting to see if they would make any changes ahead of their second match against Punjab Kings on April 16.
MS Dhoni fined INR 12 lakh
In addition to the loss, Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni dealt with another blow in the form of a fine for maintaining a slow over rate. It is worth mentioning that the over rate rule is on of the three rules which had been amended by the IPL before the start of this season.
“The minimum over rate to be achieved in IPL Matches shall be 14.11 overs per hour [ignoring the time taken by time-outs]. In uninterrupted matches, this means that the 20th over should finish within 90 minutes [being 85 minutes of playing time plus 5 minutes of time-out] of the start of the innings.
“For delayed or interrupted matches where an innings is scheduled to be less than 20 overs, the maximum time of 90 minutes shall be reduced by 4 minutes 15 seconds for every over by which the innings is reduced,” the IPL had said in a statement published on its website last month.
As far as Dhoni is concerned, he has been handed an INR 12 lakh fine for now. A repeat in the same offence this season could even hand him a one match ban.
“As it was his team’s first offence of the season under the IPL’s Code of Conduct relating to minimum over-rate offences, Mr Dhoni was fined Rs 12 lakh,” the IPL said in a statement published on their website.
