Chennai: MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings went close to the victory mark against Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday. In the final over, MS Dhoni failed to dispatch the ball to the boundary with five runs remaining.
CSK Skipper played a power-packed knock of 32 runs off just 17 deliveries in his 200th match as a captain in IPL. However, head coach Stephen Fleming revealed the bad news and said that MS Dhoni is nursing a knee injury, which has hindered his ability to run quickly between the wickets.
During the match, it was quite evident that MS Dhoni was finding it difficult to run between the wickets.
Talking about the injury, Stephen Fleming said “He is nursing a knee injury, which you can see in some of his movements, which is hindering him somewhat. But still what you saw today is a great player for us. His fitness has always been very professional,”.
Fleming brushed aside concerns about Dhoni’s fitness and lauded the skipper for managing his fitness ahead of IPL 2023.
He further added that “He comes a month before the tournament starts, so he does not get the opportunity to do a lot [before that]. He will stay fit, they will do some netting in Ranchi, but his main pre-season [fitness] is done a month before when he comes to Chennai. And he works his way back into match form and I think you can still see he is playing pretty well.”
But the mounting injuries in seam attack are concerning the coach, with Sisanda Magala bowling only two overs against RR before he was forced to leave the field due to split webbing.
“For us again, it is losing another player – that is two games in a row – and we are already pretty thin, so we would like it [injuries] to stop,” Fleming said.
“Magala’s hand was split unfortunately, so he was unable to bowl those last two overs. And same with Deepak Chahar in the last game, so we are operating on pretty thin resources. But we are not the only team to have that,” added the coach.
CSK now has a five day break before they clash with Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 17.
(With Agency Inputs)
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