IPL 2022: Captain’s pressure was affecting Ravindra Jadeja’s game, says CSK skipper MS Dhoni | Cricket News

PUNE: Talismanic Mahendra Singh Dhoni feels the pressure and demand for captaincy has taken its toll on Ravindra Jadeja and affected the all-rounder’s spirit which has resulted in him having a below par outing in the colors of Chennai Super Kings (CSK listen)) in the current Indian Premier League (IPL).
Jadeja was named CSK skipper for the current season after Dhoni decided to step down, but the all-rounder failed to cope with the pressure and eventually gave up the job, forcing the franchise to fall back on his most reliable lieutenant.
Back at the helm, Dhoni produced instant results as CSK secured a 13-point win over Sunrisers Hyderabad to stay afloat in the tournament.

“I think Jadeja knew last season that he would be captain this year. For the first two games, I supervised his work and left him later. After that, I insisted that he take its own decisions and takes responsibility for them.
“Once you become captain it means a lot of requests come in. But it affected his spirit as the tasks increased. I think the captaincy took a toll on his preparation and performance,” said Dhoni at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Dhoni said Jadeja taking over the team was a gradual transition, which he wanted.
“He knew and had enough time to prepare, what’s important is that you wanted him to lead the team and I wanted that transition to happen. At the end of the season, you don’t want not that it feels like the captain was made by someone else and i’m just going to throw it.
“So it was a gradual transition. Spoon feeding doesn’t really help the captain. On the pitch, you have to make those crucial decisions and you have to take responsibility for those decisions. Once you become captain, we have to take care of a lot of things and that also includes your own game,” he said.

Dhoni hoped that Jadeja would revive as a player after being released from pressure from the captain.
“…if you’re relieved of the captaincy and if you’re at your best, that’s what we want. We were also losing a great defender (Jadeja), we’re struggling for a deep mid-wicket defender, we We lost 17-18 holds and that’s a concern.
“These are tough games and I hope we come back strong, important to communicate with the bowlers,” he said.
Speaking about the game, Dhoni said they managed to put a defensible scoreboard on the board.
“It was a good score to start. I didn’t do anything different. It’s not like a lot of changes with the change of captain. The goal we got was good. The dew is coming, so the bowling had to be good.
“The spinners did well in the 7-14 period, that was the key to the win and gave a surplus of points we could fall back on.”
SRH skipper Kane Williamson says it’s always difficult to chase down a target over 200 in a T20 match.

“When someone goes over 200, it’s always going to be a challenge to chase them. I thought we answered that well, but they kept us under pressure with the total they had.
“We showed a lot of fighting and sometimes we were unlucky with some things that didn’t go our way,” he said.
Williamson said losing the services of Washington Sundar in the bowling department after sustaining an injury while on the court was a big setback for the team.
“He (the pitch) was a bit slower. We tried our best but losing Washy (Sundar) for most of the bowling innings was a struggle for us.
“We can still look at the game with a lot of positives. We came up against some quality spinners. In the end, we showed a lot of fighting,” he said.
The SRH skipper said the need of the hour for his team was to stay connected and continue the good work of the first half of the tournament.
“We just need to stay connected, we’re playing well, and we did that in the first half of the tournament (talking about the five-game winning streak). We just need to address a few points, train well and to come back stronger in the next match.”