Ruturaj Gaikwad has been going through a rough patch where he got out cheaply in the first three matches. MS Dhoni and the team still backed him to do well here and as a result, Ruturaj got to his first fifty of IPL 2021, got out after making 64.
During the post-match presentation, The Chennai Super Kings captain revealed the talk he had with Ruturaj Gaikwad before the contest between CSK and KKR.
“Rutu is somebody who has shown his class in the last IPL. You always need to assess where he is mentally. Once when he was off guard, I just asked him how are you feeling today. When you put a question like that, you wait for the reactions, you see what’s in his eyes. There was enough in his reactions to suggest he wasn’t rattled. That’s what I’ve been doing all my life (applying psychology) but in a good way,” he said.
When asked about the pressure when the KKR middle order were firing, Dhoni said that he knew he couldn’t do much.
“You can’t do too much. Can’t put different field. It’s about you vs me. The side that has one is a side that has executed slightly better. But if they would’ve had more wickets, could’ve been different. Have seen enough in cricket, always like to be humble. There’s no good reason if you have scored, the opposition can’t score. My lines to the players was that we have got good runs on the board but let’s be humble. You don’t want to take too many early wickets. Big hitters coming in, 200 runs, there’s only one way they’ll play. Not much you can do,” he said.
Chennai Super Kings defeated Kolkata Knight Riders in thriller at Wankhede Stadium. Faf du Plessis and Ruturaj Gaikwad added 115 for the first wicket and Du Plessis kept going to make 95*, took team to 220 for 3.
In return, Chahar once again ran through the batting order in powerplay, had four wickets to his name. However, Russell and Karthik rescued the team and Cummins took them closer to the target but unfortunately, there was no support from other end, as the team fell 18 runs short of the target.
With 3 wins in row, CSK moves to the top of the table now.
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