IPL 2025: MS Dhoni says they don’t want to play timid cricket after win against LSG

Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni said they don’t want to play timid cricket after a five-wicket win against Lucknow Super Giants at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow in the ongoing IPL 2025 on Monday.

After losing five matches on the bounce, Dhoni reckons this was a much-needed win for the team and it would give them a lot of confidence.

CSK was able to restrict LSG to 166 after winning the toss as Matheesha Pathirana and Ravindra Jadeja bagged two wickets each. Noor Ahmad also bowled an economical spell as he conceded only 13 runs in the four overs he bowled.

On the other hand, Rachin Ravindra scored 37 runs whereas Shivam Dube, who struggled a bit with his timing, scored 43 runs. MS Dhoni once again added the finishing touches with an 11-ball 26 to take his team over the line.

Dhoni admitted that they have struggled as a batting unit and they need to play on a better home pitch to help their batters get back the confidence.

MS said in the post-match presentation, “It’s good to win a game. When you play a tournament like this, you want to win games. Unfortunately, the [earlier] matches didn’t go our way for whatever reasons. There can be lots of reasons. It’s good to have a win on our side. Gives confidence to the whole team and helps us improve in areas we want to improve. We all knew that when it doesn’t come your way in cricket, God makes it very tough, and it was a tough game.”

He added, “If you see the powerplay, whether it was the combination or the conditions, we were struggling with the ball. And then we weren’t able to get the start we wanted as a batting unit. Also the fall of wickets. We keep losing wickets at the wrong time to some extent. One of the reasons could be that the Chennai wicket is slightly on the slower side. When we have played away from home, the batting unit has done slightly better. Maybe we need to play on wickets that are slightly better so that it’ll give the batters confidence to play their shots. You don’t want to play timid cricket.”

CSK will next take on arch-rivals MI at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on Sunday.