IPL 2025 | You can plug a hole or two, but if majority does badly, it's difficult: Dhoni

Chennai: A distraught Mahendra Singh Dhoni has expressed his helplessness at Chennai Super Kings' extended poor run in the ongoing IPL and said it's difficult for a team to get the desired result when four-five players lose form at the same time.

CSK lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad by five wickets here on Friday after another shoddy batting effort from the hosts, the result dealing a near-fatal blow to their play-off chances.

Bowled out for 154, CSK saw the visitors reach their target with eight balls to spare.

"In a tournament like this, if you have one or two areas where you can plug in the holes, it is good. But if majority of your players are not doing well, it becomes very difficult," Dhoni said at the post-match press conference.

CSK, who are known to maintain continuity in team selections over the years, have fielded around 19 players in nine games so far, and Dhoni said he had no option but to explore various combinations.

"Because you have to do a few changes, but if majority are doing well then you give those guys that extra few games and if it doesn't work out than you move onto the next one. But if four of them are not performing at the same time, you are bound to make that change, because you can't just keep on going," Dhoni added.

CSK have had one of their worst IPL seasons and are currently placed at the bottom of the points table with seven defeats. What is worse is that four of those losses have come at Chepauk, which remained their fortress for the longest time.

Bit it foreigners such as Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra, Sam Curran or Indian players like Rahul Tripathi, Deepak Hooda and Vijay Shankar, none of them could step up in the first nine games.

Dhoni identified the batters' failure to attack spinners in the middle overs as one of the big reasons for the dismal show and felt that South African youngster Dewald Brevis would be a vital cog going forward.

Brevis scored 42 against SRH, but more importantly, looked good against the spinners.

"I think he (Brevis) batted really well and we need something like that in the middle order, where we have slightly struggled when the spinners come in, that's a time we need to either you do it by batsmanship, where you pick up your areas or try to play the big shot in your area.

"I feel that's where we have been lacking and not been really able to dominate or get runs against spinners at good pace in the middle. Because we are not putting enough runs on the board, because it is essential right now, the game has changed.

"I am not saying it is always 180-200, but assess the conditions and then look to put the runs on the board," Dhoni said, his frustration and anger quite palpable.

He made no bones about CSK's failure with the bat on Friday, saying the pitch was good for stroke-making and the total was way below par.

"We kept losing wickets, and in the first innings the wicket was slightly better and 155 is not a justifiable score, because it wasn't turning a lot. Yes, after the 8-10th over, it became slightly two-paced when it comes to the fast bowlers, but nothing that was out of the ordinary.

"I feel we could have put few more runs on the board. Yes, second innings there was a bit of help, our spinners the quality was there and they bowled in the right areas and it was stopping a bit but we were short by 15-20 runs," he concluded.

It was tough to hit cross-batted shots: Harshal

Harshal Patel, a fine exponent of the slower ball and cutters, got the Player-of-the-Match award for returning excellent figures of 4/28, and he believed that the Chepauk track wasn't conducive for playing horizontal bat strokes, and so it became easy for the SRH medium pacer to dominate the home team.

"I figured out pretty early, hitting the lengths and keeping it at the sticks was important. It was tough to hit the horizontal bat shots. I wanted the batters to hit me over square-leg and mid-wicket. So, I kept pulling the length back and mixing my pace up." Unlike other, who have tried bowling wide yorkers to Dhoni in order to keep it out of his hitting arc, Harshal did the complete opposite.

"Was trying to bowl length to him (Dhoni). Wasn't trying to bowl wide. Was one of those variations that you try and bowl something but it doesn't come off. But glad it came off and went to hand," he said.

His skipper Pat Cummins was happy that SRH finally won their first game at Chepauk after failing all these years.

"That was great. Few things came together tonight. Boys played well. Good to see a few smiles. Couple of guys at the top looked like taking the game on.

"In these conditions, threw Klaasen at the top and Nitish to finish it off. Our record here isn't great. Be more clinical going forward but pleased with the win," Cummins said.