Mahendra Singh Dhoni has urged the curators at the Chepauk to prepare better surfaces which can give his batters the confidence to play their shots like they did here as he does not want Chennai Super Kings to play timid cricket. Dhoni’s 11-ball 26 was instrumental in CSK’s win over Lucknow Super Giants after the five-time champions snapped their four-match losing streak, which also included three defeats at home. Chasing a target of 167, CSK won with three balls to spare with a markedly better batting performance.

CSK have been invincible at ‘Fortress Chepauk’ over the years but the ‘Yellow Brigade’ is yet to open its account at home this season.

“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,” Dhoni, who won his first player of the match award in six years, said in the post-match presentation on Tuesday.

“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,” the ‘Captain Cool’ said.

Dhoni admitted that his batters need to fulfil their roles and responsibilities better.  “As a batting unit, we can do better. Roles and responsibilities - that’s what we talk about. If you get off to a good start, and you’re someone who can play through the innings, then why not. I think he batted really well today.”

He also agreed that CSK’s Powerplay performance has been an issue in the past five games.

“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.”

In fact, R Ashwin often bowled in Powerplays with not much success during this edition.

“We were putting too much pressure on Ash. He was bowling two overs in the first six (overs). We made changes and this looks like a better attack. As a bowling unit we’ve done well.”

Former India U-19 World Cup winner Shaik Rasheed made his debut for Chennai Super Kings scoring 27 off 19 balls with six boundaries. Rasheed has been around for past two seasons but got his debut only this year and the legendary former India captain seemed happy with what he saw.

“He has been with us for quite a few years (Shaik Rasheed). This year he has been batting really well in the nets against both pacers and spinners. It’s just the start. He has the capability to dominate with authentic shots,” the skipper said.

When it doesn’t come your way, God makes it tough

Dhoni felt that in a tournament like IPL, losing a few games on the bounce can make comebacks a bit tough.

“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 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 also said in lighter vein that he didn’t know why the adjudicators zeroed in on him to win the Player of The Match award.

“Even today I was like - ‘why are they giving me the award?’” Noor (Ahmed) bowled really well.”

The left-arm spinner bowled 13 balls in his four overs, stifling rival captain Rishabh Pant.