Chennai Super Kings succumbed to their third straight defeat of IPL 2022, when they lost to Punjab Kings on Sunday by 54 runs. Chasing a big target of 181 runs to win the match, CSK had a terrible start to their innings and it was only a partnership between Shivam Dube and MS Dhoni that helped the team get past the 100-run mark as CSK were eventually bowled out for 126.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar felt that CSK were stuck in their chase when Dube and Dhoni got together as the former CSK captain was not able to move the strike along.
“With MSD, what you see is that even if he doesn’t start hitting the big ones, he is moving the strike along, getting those ones and twos. He wasn’t quite able to do that this time around. That’s where CSK got stuck just that little bit,” Gavaskar told Star Sports as reported by India Today.
“If they had a situation where Shivam Dube was hitting the ball so well, they needed to get a move on along with him. That didn’t quite happen. Look at those some of those dot balls that he played, yes, later on, he made up with the boundaries. When you are looking to score 20 runs an over, that’s tough for the best of players, it’s not easy,” he added.
The defending champions have not managed to win a match yet this season and will have bring their campaign back on track soon, else qualifying for the play-offs will become a big challenge.
