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Dhoni, Kohli unhappy with Chepauk track

Last updated on: March 24, 2019 08:42 IST

'The wicket definitely needs to be much better; even with dew it was spinning big'

IMAGE: Chennai Super Kings skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is congratulated by Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli at the end of first match of 12th edition of the Indian Premier League, at the MAC Stadium in Chennai, on Saturday. Photograph: R Senthil Kumar/PTI

Rival captains Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli expressed dissatisfaction over the slowness of the Chepauk track as the opening Indian Premier League encounter on Saturday turned out to be damp squib.

While RCB were out for 70 in 17.1 overs, CSK scored the required runs in 17.4 overs.

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"We were really surprised by how slow the wicket was. It reminded me of a Champions League wicket in 2011 after we won the IPL. The wicket definitely needs to be much better; even with dew it was spinning big," Dhoni said at the post-match presentation.

Kohli said: "The wicket looked much better than it played. We thought 140-150 would be an ideal score. A scrappy sort of start but either team would have struggled batting first."

Dhoni, who correctly assessed the track at the toss, said that any genuine spinner would do well on the track.

"80, 90, 100 is really low-scoring and if you have genuine spinners in your line-up you can create a lot of trouble. We need to score runs as well; ours is a batting attack where batsmen like to play their shots and you can't control the toss, which means that we might have to bowl first in matches as well," Dhoni said.

"Other teams have good spinners as well and this isn't the pitch we are looking forward to," he added.

Kohli expressed relief that a match like this happened at the start of the tournament.

"No one wants to start like this, but it's good to get a game like this out of the way this early in the tournament. We spoke of trying to be in the game, taking it to the 18th over was nice to see," he said.

"The batting wasn't good, it wasn't easy to bat on, looked much better surface though. I thought 140-150 would have been an ideal score, especially with dew expected later on.

"A scrappy start to the league, but I don't think either team had control over it; the pitch was under the covers for four days, but we should have batted better, 110-120 would have been a fighting score."