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Former India cricketer Kevin Pietersen has slammed MS Dhoni for his approach while chasing a massive 217-runs target set up by Rajasthan Royals (RR), in Match 4 of the ongoing IPL.
None of the CSK batsmen barring Faf du Plessis rose up to the occasion during the chase. Dhoni joined du Plessis in the fourteenth over, after the dismissal of Kedar Jadhav.
While considering the stiff target to be chased, everyone expected a no-holds-barred assault from the CSK skipper right from the beginning. But to much dismay, Dhoni initially dealt in singles and doubles, relying more on du Plessis’ hitting prowess.
Dhoni did launch three successive sixes off Tom Curran in the last over, but it was a tad too late.
KP criticises Dhoni for his lack of intent
Pietersen said that the lack of urgency from Dhoni hurt CSK in the end as they fell 16 runs short of the target.
“Yeah, you got to get up. You have to at least give yourself the opportunity to win the game. That’s what Sunny is talking about,” Pietersen said in a post-match show on Star Sports.
“So we were talking about a 4 or 5-over period when they were just knocking it around, knocking it around and running silly singles. They could have caught the game up there with a little bit of intent. They could have easily knocked this score off. If you need 20 in the last over, you can win this game.”
Dhoni earlier reasoned that he wanted to give the opportunity to youngsters like Sam Curran and Ruturaj Gaekwad to bat higher up the order. Further, the Ranchi-lad hasn’t batted for a long time, so he was a bit sceptical of his hitting ability.
Pietersen, however, remarked that he doesn’t buy such arguments and Dhoni should have led from the front.
“It’s not about experiments, saying ‘oh it’s early on in the tournament’. Let me tell you, T20 cricket can bite you very, very quickly. You can end up losing five games on the go very quickly, and then you can end up thinking ‘oh my goodness, are we actually going to get into the finals?’. I am not buying into this nonsense,” Pietersen added.
