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IPL 2021: 'Dhoni not only batsman who struggled' - Stephen Fleming defends CSK captain
Speaking at the virtual press conference, CSK head coach Stephen Fleming came to Dhoni's defence and said that Dhoni was not the only batsman who struggled on theslow Dubai track.
Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni had an off day once again with the bat in the Indian Premier League 2021 match against Delhi Capitals on Monday. The right-handed batsman came eon to bat when CSK needed to accelerate, but Dhoni played 27 balls and could only score 18 runs. He was unable to score any boundary during his innings, and CSK could only put a total of 136/5 in 20 overs.
Delhi Capitals struggled with the bat as well, but Shimron Hetmyer's unbeaten 28-run innings set up the win for Rishabh Pant-led team.
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Speaking at the virtual press conference, CSK head coach Stephen Fleming came to Dhoni's defence and said that Dhoni was not the only batsman who struggled on the slow Dubai track.
"Dhoni was not the only one, it was a difficult day for strokeplay. 137 was almost enough, it was a tough wicket to score big on in terms of big shots, both teams struggled with it towards the end of the innings. Sometimes, you set your sights too high, probably we were just 10-15 runs short of having a match-winning score," Fleming said, as per news agency ANI.
"That is the difficulty at the moment, trying to assess what the conditions are at three different grounds, there was no lack of intent. We had to stabilise after a couple of mistakes. Delhi bowled well in the last five overs, they were really smart," Fleming added.
It was the 4th time in IPL where captain MS Dhoni faced 20+ balls in an innings without a boundary. No other captain has done this more than once. Here is a look at all the instances
A) 28(30) v RCB, 2009
B) 8*(22) v KKR, 2016
C) 12(21) v MI, 2019
D) 18(27) v DC, 2021
With this win, Rishabh Pant-led outfit moved to the top of the points table with 20 points from 13 games.
(With inputs from ANI)
