It does hurt: MS Dhoni during post-match interview

MS Dhoni opened up after CSK’s humiliating loss against MI on Friday. The team went on to lose by 10 wickets and are currently out of the play-off race.

Talking about the performance in the post-match interview, Dhoni said: It does hurt. What you need to see is what are the things that are going wrong. Specially this year, it hasn’t been our year. Whether you lose by 8 or 10 wickets, it hardly matters, but where we are at this stage of the tournament, it does hurt. What you need to see is where we actually went wrong, right from the second game. It was more about the bowling. Rayudu got injured, the other batsman were maybe not there 200% and in cricket when you’re going through a tough phase, you need a bit of luck. The games we wanted to bat first, we haven’t won the toss, and there’s no dew and all of a sudden when we bat first there’s dew. Whenever you’re not doing well, there can be a 100 reasons, but one of the main things you ask yourself is whether you’ve played to the potential you’ve got no matter the conditions. When you put a good team on paper, have we done enough to back up the stats? And this year we haven’t. Cumulatively there have been batting failures. It’s part and parcel, you can’t always think the result will go your way. You try to do the toughest thing, even when you’re hurting, you try to smile and take it on the chin. I feel the boys have done that, they’ve tried to perform. I think it’s important for us to have a clear picture of next year. There are lots of ifs and buts – auction, where the venues will be. The coming three games will be an ideal opportunity to give platforms. See some of the youngsters in preparation for the next year, see who will bat and who bowls at the death and soaks the pressure. A few more who are on the bench will get games in the coming three games.

Despite changes in the playing XI, the team couldn’t find the right balance as they lost early wickets and it was Sam Curran’s fifty that took the team to a decent total. However, it wasn’t enough as MI won the match by 10 wickets.