Bengaluru: Chennai Super Kings skipper MS Dhoni banks on his bowling coach Dwayne Bravo to tackle the challenge of handling youngsters at the death overs as the team pulled off an eight-run victory against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the latter's home stadium, in the Indian Premier League, on Monday night.
Bravo was instrumental in etching the finest wins of CSK when he was part of the playing eleven along with Dhoni. "It is a difficult one for the youngsters. But they are working hard. Bravo is one of the specialists. Under him, the bowlers will gain confidence. It's a team game. The coach, the bowling coach and the senior players guide them," Dhoni said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Dube- Dhoni wanted Shivam Dube who made a 27-ball 52, to work on his batting against pacers and was all praise for Dube's footwork against the spinners. "Dube is a clean hitter, is a tall guy with good reach. He has an issue with the fast bowlers but he's a clean hitter against the spinners. We had certain plans for him. We feel he's someone who can deliver. He needs to believe in that more than us," Dhoni said.
RCB's fight- RCB was very much in the game until the duo of its skipper Faf du Plessis (62 off 33 balls) and Glenn Maxwell (76 off 36) were playing and built pressure on CSK. "Whenever you score 220, the batsmen need to keep on hitting. If Faf and Maxi had continued, they would have won it by the 18th over. I keep assessing from behind the wicket, I am always involved in what needs to be done rather than thinking about the result," Dhoni said on how he viewed the RCB's batting.
DK fails to finish- RCB captain du Plessis credited the excellent bowling of CSK at death overs for their victory and that prevented Dinesh Karthik from finishing the game which was set up for him in the last five overs. "I think we played it perfectly, the last five overs were set up for the finish. DK finishing the game, that's bread and butter for him, but that shows how good their bowling was," du Plessis said.
"200 was going to be par, we went for few runs towards the end. We could have minimised the damage by restricting them (for less than 20 in an over). The last four overs was where it was set up for a perfect finish. It was one of those wickets, one of the best (for batters.) As a bowler you need to be skilful, Siraj was unbelievable," du Plessis said.
"We couldn't manage to finish it off, but we got to move on. I lost a little bit of power towards the end, was disappointed as I got stiff. Need to keep going harder against the spinners in the middle overs," the RCB skipper said.
