Lucknow, Apr 15: Chennai Super Kings ended their five-game losing streak and like many times before it was captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, alongside Shivam Dube’s gritty knock, who produced a Player of the Match performance to seal the five-wicket victory.

CSK currently sit at the bottom of the IPL 2025 points table having won just their second game on the night. Dhoni acknowledged that things have been tough and hopes the win acts as a boost in confidence.

“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. 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,” said Dhoni in the post game interview.

While Dhoni earned the POTM honours for his blitz of 26 off 11 balls, Dube soaked in the pressure, and despite being tied down early, he exploded in the 19th over, taking Shardul Thakur apart. A guided four, a full-toss sent into the stands, and a no-ball gave CSK 19 runs, leaving just 4 needed off the last over, Dube remained not out on 43 off 37 and hitting the winnour four off Avesh Khan.

The left-handed middle order batter revealed his approach on the day as he took his time before taking the ballers apart.

“This means a lot, losing 5 games in a row that is not CSK, our bowlers bowled really well and today I had wanted to stay till the end and I had this thought that I wanted to finish the game and I felt this is the time to take the game very deep after losing few wickets in the middle. It's not about the mindset and it is about playing according to the situation which is why instead of attacking, I felt taking the game deep was a better option.

“ My plan was very simple, which is not to try and hit the ball very hard because the bowlers were executing very well. Taking positives from this game to next game is very important,” said Dube.

(IANS)

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