EXCLUSIVE
Follow UsWith Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ambati Rayudu going back to hut in quick succession and with asking rate mounting, it was only justifiable that CSK sent Ravindra Jadeja to close the game. But instead, it was MS Dhoni who came out to bat ahead of him and surprised everyone by taking the game by its horns instantly. He smashed Tom Curran for three consecutive fours to help CSK to the final but before that. Brian Lara was completely taken aback by the move.
“Obviously, I was a little bit worried about Dhoni coming ahead of Jadeja as Dhoni had a lean season so far. But the most important thing is he backed himself. And remember, when Dhoni backs himself and pulls off things, it is worrying because it can be a trend. It will worry some teams who would have wanted Dhoni to come early but now with a trend set, they would be thinking differently,” Lara told Cricket.com in an exclusive conversation.
Lara further stated that CSK have a decent bowling line-up which restricted Delhi Capitals to 172 despite Prithvi Shaw providing a good start with the bat. Lara also refrained from criticizing Shaw, saying it was still a winning total that Delhi bowlers could have defended.
“They are a great outfit. The opening spell from Josh Hazlewood was great, Deepak Chahar got knocked a bit but they are very important to set the tone. And I feel they did a decent job. Delhi might have been able to get 10-15 more runs that they got from the start from Prithvi Shaw and got a decent total onboard eventually. But I guess the better team prevailed in the end.
“Delhi did well and you can’t fault Prithvi Shaw either. He tried to hit over extra cover, just got maybe too much of it. However, at one point, 185 looked like an achievable total. However, I believed with their bowling attack, they could have defended the total. They have got another chance and I guess they can turn it around,” the stylish Trinidadian added.