“We’ll come back stronger,” says MS Dhoni after failing to seal the chase vs SRH

MS Dhoni: The legendary player remained unbeaten in a losing chase only for the sixth time in the Indian Premier League.

During the 14th match of the ongoing 13th season of the Indian Premier League between Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Chennai, Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Chennai Super Kings by 7 runs to register their second victory in the tournament.

Chasing a 165-run target, Super Kings were reduced to 36/3 in the powerplay. SRH all-rounder Abdul Samad further dented the runners-up by sending back Kedar Jadhav (3) in his first over.

A 72-run partnership for the fifth wicket between Chennai captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (47*) and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja (50) looks impressive on paper but could never bring back the runners-up into the chase.

Needing 44 runs to win in the last two overs, CSK seemed to have a bit of a chance with Sunrisers pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar walking-off after getting injured. With onus on Dhoni and Sam Curran, they were successful in reducing the deficit but couldn’t prevent a third consecutive loss.

MS Dhoni admits to not middling the ball

Speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, Dhoni was honest enough to admit that he didn’t time the ball as well as he would’ve liked despite coming in to bat at No. 5 in the seventh over.

“I was not able to middle a lot of balls. Was trying to hit it too hard. Looking at the boundary lines it was happening to me subconsciously. Normally, you would want to time it. Tried to get as much as time as possible. Long time back [2014] we lost three in a row,” Dhoni said during the presentation ceremony.

With Super Kings’ fielders dropping catches and bowlers bowling no-balls, Dhoni found faults in the same and called for more professionalism. Observing positives from the match, the 39-year old hoped to come back stronger in the matches to come.

“We need to take our catches not bowl no-balls. We have been a bit too relaxed at times. We had two good overs but overall we could have been slightly better at the death. At this level, we need to draw a line and say these catches cannot be dropped. There are plenty of positives in this game and we will come back stronger,” Dhoni added.