IPL 2022: MS Dhoni slams CSK batters, calls shot selection ‘injudicious’ after loss to RCB

Following his side’s 13-run defeat to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni said that the shot selection could have been better towards the end.

Superb bowling efforts from Harshal Patel (3/35) and Glenn Maxwell (2/22) guided Royal Challengers Bangalore to a win over Chennai Super Kings at MCA stadium in Pune on Wednesday (May 4).

Fighting knocks from Devon Conway (56), Moeen Ali (34) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (28) kept hopes for CSK alive but were not enough for them to outplay Bangalore as a unit, as the bowlers outdid the CSK batters. Shahbaz Ahmed (1/27), Josh Hazlewood (1/19) and Wanindu Hasaranga (1/31) also delivered with the ball for RCB.

“We did well to restrict them to 170-odd runs. I felt in the later half it could be better and we had to get off to a good start, everything was upto the mark and what let us down was the batsmanship.

When you are chasing you know what is required and at times you have to curb your instinct and see what really the situation is demanding rather than playing your shots. The shot selection could have been better towards the end. We had a good start and had wickets in hand, the surface kept getting better but we lost wickets at regular intervals,” said Dhoni at the post-match presentation.

Dhoni added that chasing is about calculations and batting first is more about instinct. “We can look back at some of the shots, if we take care of those things… Ultimately as a batter or bowler, you are in the middle and you have to decide, I do not think that was a problem today.

We need to keep looking about what went wrong, it is easy to get distracted with how many points you have. It is the mistakes and it is the process that matters rather than where you are positioned in the points table,” he added.

Chasing 174, Chennai Super Kings got off a great start, with openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway rotating the strike consistently and hitting four and sixes regularly. Conway in particular looked in really great touch. The duo completed their fifty run partnership in the sixth over of the game.