"Not Buying This Nonsense": Kevin Pietersen On MS Dhoni Defending His Batting Position For CSK

Kevin Pietersen, a part of the host broadcasters for IPL 2020, sidelined the comments offered from MS Dhoni in his defense to come out to bat at No.7 for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). CSK were chasing a mammoth total of 217 runs against Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Dhoni demoted him down the order.

In the post-match interview, Dhoni defended his stance by saying that he wanted to try new things by giving opportunity to Sam Curran. He also said that the reason he batted down the order was because he has not played for a long period of time. However, Pietersen said that he is not into buying all this nonsense, referring to the comments from the CSK captain.

“Yeah, you got to get up. You have to at least give yourself the opportunity to win the game. That’s what Sunny is talking about,” Kevin Pietesen told Star Sports during a post-match analysis show.

“When you see how close they went, Du Plessis started to go, then MS Dhoni started hitting at the end and then they lost by only 16 runs.

“So we were talking about a 4 or 5-over period when they were just knocking it around, knocking it around and running silly singles. They could have caught the game up there with a little bit of intent. They could have easily knocked this score off. If you need 20 in the last over, you can win this game.

“It’s not about experiments, saying ‘oh it’s early on in the tournament’. Let me tell you, T20 cricket can bite you very, very quickly. You can end up losing five games on the go very quickly and then you can end up thinking ‘oh my goodness, are we actually going to get into the finals?’. I am not buying into this nonsense.”

Dhoni played a bizarre knock during a mammoth 217-run chase against Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2020 contest on Tuesday. Dhoni once again promoted Sam Curran in the batting line-up as he stepped in to bat at No.7 for Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

CSK heavily relied on Faf du Plessis to score most of the runs. Dhoni just picked up singles to return strike to the former South Africa captain. The veteran batsman looked out of touch for most part of the match, before he changed his bat in the final over, and slammed three back to back sixes.