- Wednesday, September 11, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Four-time champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) won their first match of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 on Monday (3) when they narrowly defeated Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai in the southern state of Tamil Nadu but their captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was not too impressed with his team’s bowling efforts.
CSK posted a formidable total of 217 for 7 in 20 overs after LSG captain KL Rahul won the toss and asked them to bat. Opener Ruturaj Gaikwad hit his second consecutive fifty (57 off 31) to be his team’s highest scorer. But they almost threw it away as Lucknow gave themselves a flying start but eventually managed to reach 205 for 7 in their 20, thanks to Moeen Ali’s four-wicket haul for just 26 runs. Chennai bowlers conceded 18 extras in their innings, including two leg byes, 13 wide balls and three no balls.
#CSK bowlers today bowled 13 wides and 3 no balls against #LSG and Captain @msdhoni, in his inimitable style, had this to say. ??#TATAIPL | #CSKvLSG pic.twitter.com/p6xRqaZCiK
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 3, 2023
Chennai were also guilty of leaking too many extra runs in their first match against Gujarat Titans on Friday (31) when they conceded 12 extras, including six leg byes, four wides and two no balls). Chennai lost that match by five wickets despite scoring 170-plus batting first.
After the match, Dhoni, who was even seen showing CSK pacer Tushar Deshpande how not to bowl no balls by overstepping, issued a stern warning to his bowlers saying the team needed “to slightly improve” in the fast-bowling department. He even said that the bowlers would have to play under a new captain if they failed to discipline themselves in terms of bowling extras.
“Need to bowl according to the conditions. What is important is to keep an eye as to what the opposition bowlers are doing. One more thing is they’ll have to bowl no no-balls or extra wides, or they’ll have to play under a new captain. It will be my second warning and then I’ll be off,” he said.
The veteran, who will turn 42 this year, praised the pitch where the high-scoring game was played.
The wicket-keeper-batter though did not get much runs in the match, scoring 13 off three balls with two sixes, his brief outing saw him completing 5,000 runs in the IPL.
