Chennai Super Kings beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 13 runs in an Indian Premier League match in Pune’s MCA Stadium on Sunday. It was Mahendra Singh Dhoni‘s first game after he was reinstated as the captain of CSK. 

Speaking about the captaincy change, MSD said, “I did nothing different, it’s not like much changes with the change of captain. The target we got was a good one, dew comes in so the bowling needed to be good. The spinners did well in the 7-14 over period, that was key to the win and gave a surplus of runs which we could fall back on. We have had quite a few good performances with the bat, but we gave 25 off 2 overs and their like with the ball, so the bowlers have to try something different. I have told my bowlers that if bowlers get hit for 4 sixes off the over, two balls are left and something can be done. Not sure everyone buys in with such theories but I think it works.”

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“I think Jadeja knew last season he’d be captaining this year. For the first two games, I oversaw his work and let him be later. I insisted he’d take his own decisions and responsibility for them. Once you become captain, it means a lot of demands come in and can affect the player’s performance and occupy their mind which I think was the case with him. I think captaincy burdened his prep and performances, it meant he could not go with the bat and ball with the same intensity, we had a deep-midwicket fielder. We have had a lot of drops which we need to improve on. We do not want bowlers to be lost, with the younger bowlers, you need to be with them and tell them about the fields. It’s good to see Mukesh come up, you can’t get away with things at this level. You need to accept shortcoming too which is key,” MSD said during the post-match presentation ceremony. 

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On Saturday, Ravindra Jadeja relinquished CSK captaincy and handed it back to MSD after the team lost six out of its first eight matches in the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League.