They’ll Have To Play Under New Captain: MS Dhoni Threatens To Leave CSK’s Captaincy If Bowlers Keep Bowling Wides And No Balls

MS Dhoni was not impressed with the performance of his bowlers and has given them a warning saying he'll leave captaincy if they don't stop bowling extra wides and no balls.

Chennai: Chennai Super Kings might have won their first IPL 2023 match but their fast bowling is still a huge problem for them. The bowlers are not only leaking lots of runs but have also failed to show control on their line and length. Even the CSK skipper, MS Dhoni was not impressed with the performance of his bowlers and has given them a warning saying he’ll leave captaincy if they don’t stop bowling extra wides and no balls.

“Terrific high-scoring game. All of us were thinking how the wicket would be. It was the perfect first game that could happen. I thought it would be much slower. But it was a wicket where you could score runs. I was quite surprised with the wicket. But we’ll have to see if we can produce a wicket like this game after game,” Dhoni said after the match.

#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

“Fast bowling we need to slightly improve. 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. Only reason we’ve scored those runs is if the surface is nice,” Dhoni warned his bowlers.

Although MS Dhoni was smiling while giving this statement and was possibly just to tell bowlers to pull up their socks, CSK need to work on their fast bowling if they want to stay on the winning ways. LSG almost chased down the mammoth total of 217 runs. CSK bowlers bowled 18 extras in the second innings, this included three no-balls, 13 wides, and 2 leg byes.

CSK Beat LSG At Chepauk

On the back of good efforts from Moeen Ali, Tushar Deshpande, and Mitchell Santner, four-time champions Chennai Super Kings marked their grand homecoming to Chepauk in style with a 12-run victory over Lucknow Super Giants on Monday.

After Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway shared a 110-run opening stand while Ambati Rayudu and captain M.S. Dhoni, along with Moeen and Shivam Dube, propelled CSK to reach 217/7, Kyle Mayers had threatened to steal their thunder with a 22-ball 53.

His efforts meant Lucknow reached 73/0 in five overs. But Moeen and Santner came in as LSG slipped to 82/3 in the eighth over. Moeen, who picked 4-26, and Santner, who returned with 1-21, kept things tight to bring Chennai back into the game.

Nicholas Pooran threatened to drive Lucknow to a late win, but Tushar Deshpande took him out as the visitors’ ended up at 205/7, with Chennai pocketing vital two points in a high-scoring game.