‘Stop bowling no-balls and wides or play under new captain’ – MS Dhoni issues massive warning to Chennai bowlers, fans worried

At the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Monday, the Chennai franchise beat the KL Rahul-led Lucknow by 12 runs to win their first home game of the Indian T20 League 2023. Chennai scored a massive total of 217/7 in the high-scoring games. Despite a strong start, Lucknow were only able to make 205/7 runs in 20 overs. Even though Chennai prevailed, their bowlers gave up 18 additional runs. Against Gujarat in Chennai’s opening game, the bowlers gave up a staggering 12 extras which is surely a cause of concern for Dhoni and Chennai. 

During the post-match presentation, MS Dhoni made it a point to talk about this issue. He said, “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.”

He then spoke about the match and its intensity of it. He said, “It was a terrific game, high-scoring game. All of us were thinking how the wicket will be. We had that doubt. It was a high-scoring game. Overall I think it was a perfect first game that happened and it was a full house for the first game in 5 or 6 years since we’ve been here.”

The Chennai skipper then discussed the nature of the pitch at the MA Chidambaram stadium and how he didn’t expect it at all. He said, “I thought it will be much slower. It was a wicket where you could score runs but overall it got a bit slower. We’ll have to see how it plays over the next six games at home but hopefully, we can score here. Even if it’s on the flatter side, force batters to hit over the fielders.”