“At Least Start Leading From The Front,” Gautam Gambhir Criticizes MS Dhoni’s Captaincy

In yesterday’s IPL RR vs. CSK match, Rajasthan Royals put up a total of 217 runs on the board and Chennai Super Kings lost by 16 runs. After losing early wickets, Faf du Plessis’s knock of 72 runs off 37 balls peppered with 7 sixes gave CSK fans hope but by the 14th over, the team was at 114/5. Then, MS Dhoni came in to bat at No.7 and despite in 3 sixes in the last over, the team couldn’t successfully chase RR’s total.

After the match, former cricketer Gautam Gambhir questioned Dhoni’s decision to bat after Sam Curran, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Kedar Jadhav. Hindustan Times quoted him saying,

“I was a bit surprised, to be honest. MS Dhoni batting at No. 7? And sending Gaikwad before him, Sam Curran before him. Makes no sense to me. In fact, you should be leading from the front. And this is not what you call leading from the front. Batting at No. 7 when you’re chasing what… 213 [217]? The game was over. Faf was probably the lone warrior.”

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TOI quoted him adding, “Yes, you can talk about MS Dhoni’s last over [when he hit three sixes], but it was of no use, to be honest. It was just all personal runs.”

“There is nothing wrong if you end up getting out early, at least start leading from the front, trying to inspire the team as well. What you did in the last over, probably if you’d done that coming in at No. 4 or 5, alongside Faf, you could have made a game out of it. But probably there was no such intent to make a game out of it. You’ve got to be in the present, try and win each game possible. I thought there was no intent to win the game and they were never there in the chase. You can talk about Faf’s innings, but Faf initially was struggling big time. So I thought it was an absolute miscalculation, probably not the right captaincy as well. This is not how you ask someone like MS to lead the side.”

Coach Stephen Fleming defended the decision by saying, “MS is a specialist at the end of the innings, always has been. Curran was there to try and hit us and keep us in the game at that point when we were falling behind. He’s got good hitting power like we saw. Ruturaj… it was his first game and we wanted to get him into the game, into the order. We wanted to be aggressive, we’ve got a long batting order and we’re just trying to use our resources smartly.”

HT quoted the skipper saying, “I haven’t batted for a long time. 14-day quarantine doesn’t help (why he isn’t batting higher). Also wanted to try different things, give opportunities to Sam. Have the opportunity to try different things. If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to your strengths. Faf adapted very well. Something the batsmen will do, neglect square leg and go more towards long-on and long-off.”

He added, “With 217 on the board, we needed a very good start which was not the case. Steve and Samson batted very well. Need to give credit to their bowlers. Once you’ve seen the first innings, you know the length to bowl. Their spinners did well to bowl away from the batsman. Our spinners made the error to bowl too full. If we would’ve maybe restricted them to 200, it would’ve been a good game.”

Do you think CSK would have had a better chance if Dhoni came in at No.4? Tell us.

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