Chennai Super Kings slumped to their fourth defeat in six matches so far in IPL 2020 on Wednesday.
In their match before the Wednesday’s clash against Kolkata Knight Riders, the CSK had thrashed the Kings XI Punjab to come off a hat-trick of losses, and the way they dominated the game, chasing a target of 179 without losing any wickets, had given hope to their fans that the CSK were back to their winnings ways.
But it took just one game for that hope to suddenly come crashing down. More so, because on Wednesday at Abu Dhabi, for most part of the game, they seemed to be comfortably cruising along towards victory.
Chasing 168 for a win, they were comfortable at 90/1 in 10 overs. Shane Watson was smashing the ball and inching towards his second consecutive half-century. But then, from nowhere it seemed as if the CSK suddenly collapsed. They suddenly made the chase so difficult for themselves, and eventually lost by 10 runs.Analysing the CSK loss, former India spinner Pragyan Ojha felt that it was harsh to just blame the skipper MS Dhoni for the loss, and said that it was a failure of the team, and many individuals.
CSK have Kedar Jadhav who is not scoring, says Ojha
“It is not just about the KKR game, but it is about what has been happening since many days [in the CSK unit]. Every time CSK does something that the fans don’t like, they start talking about MS Dhoni. But is it humanly possible for just one individual to be responsible for everything. We cannot just blame him. We have got Kedar Jadhav who is not scoring. He is not looking the way we all expect him to perform,” Pragyan Ojha told Sports Today.
A crucial decision that the CSK took on Wednesday was to send Kedar Jadhav ahead of other power-hitters like Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja.
Kedar Jadhav was brought in to bat when CSK needed 39 off 21 balls, and ended up scoring nothing in the first five balls that he faced, as the required rate climbed up to 15 an over.
With CSK eventually losing the match by 10 runs, Jadhav only managed to score 7 runs off 12 balls.
Ojha also said that MS Dhoni was still trying to fill the gap that was left behind by the exit of Suresh Raina in the team.
“Also, MS Dhoni came up the order to bat, so he is trying to fill the gaps that are there in the team. There are two big gaps to be filled. One was Suresh Raina, who was there for CSK for so many years. And the second is Jadhav not performing. So, it becomes very difficult for you,” the spinner added.