Dhoni wants better wickets in IPL, says no one wants to play shy cricket

Lucknow, April 14 (PTI) Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni on Monday asked the IPL organizers to prepare better stands that encourage shots and say that no team wants to play “shy” cricket. Dhoni especially referred to the surface at CSK’s home field Chepauk, which has been their sitadel all these years, but it seems to be a nightmare for the five -time champions this season. CSK finally cut their five-match loss by beating Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets and Dhoni played an important role with an 11-ball 26 run to finish the match for the visitors. “One of the reasons may be that the Chennai wicket is slightly on the slower side. If we played from home, the batting unit fared slightly better. Maybe we should play on wickets that are slightly better, so it will give the fighters the confidence to play their shots. You don’t want to play shy cricket, ‘Dhoni said after the game. “As a bowling unit, we did well. As a batting unit we can do better. ‘ Dhoni, who was the player of the match, said the victory would give a lot of confidence aside. “It’s okay to win a game. If you play a tournament like this, you want to win matches. Unfortunately, the (earlier) matches have not done for whatever reasons. There may be many reasons. It’s good to get a win on our side. Give the whole team confidence and help us improve in areas we want to improve.” LSG captain Rishabh Pant, who hit his lean patch with a 49-ball 63 run, said he was slowly coming into his rhythm. “I feel better with every game, but sometimes it doesn’t come off. Step slowly in my rhythm and take every game at a time, ‘he said. Pant has the reason behind the fact that Ravi Bishnoi (2/18) was not given the last time, despite the fact that the leg spinner is their best bowler on the day. “We discussed with many players, but we couldn’t take him (Bishnoi) deeper, that (which bowled him in the last time) did not happen today.” As a team, we are looking for the positive out of every game. “Pant felt that LSG was a few runs short at a two-tempo Ekana Stadium field.” We feel that as a team of 10 to 15 runs, we still lost wickets when the momentum was with us. We had to keep stitching in partnerships. The wicket stopped a bit, but we could get 15 runs more, ‘he said. First published: 15 Apr 2025, 12:25 am Ist