Dwayne Bravo, the Chennai Super Kings all-rounder, made a startling revelation after their six-wicket victory over Delhi Capitals that they don’t hold team meetings before matches and rather depend on their experience to paddle through different situations.
Bravo also noted that they know their limitations and aim to play smart cricket. “We don’t plan. We don’t have team meetings. We just turn up, go with the flow on any given day. So yeah we just watch the situation and adjust and adapt quickly. That’s where the experience comes in.”
“We proved that last season, you know, age is just a number. Whenever people talked about the CSK team, they brought in the age factor. We are not 60 years old, yeah. We are 35, 30, 32… We are still young; we look after ourselves, we look after our body, and we have a lot of experience, and don’t matter what, you can’t beat experience in any sport, in any tournament. In anything you just cannot beat experience.”
“We know we are not the fastest team on the field. We play within our strengths, we know our weaknesses. We play smart. That is the most important thing. And we are well led by the best captain in the world, and he keeps reminding us that we’re not the fastest team, but we can be the smartest team.”
CSK’s ability to wade through tricky situations can be capsulised by Bravo’s fine comeback after going for 17 in his first over. The all rounder ended up with impressive figures of 3 for 33. MS Dhoni’s tactical nous also come to the fore as he employed innovative fields on the on side to set the trap for Rishabh Pant.
“Seventeen runs in the first over. The first one was an edge. The second one was a low full toss. It was just a matter of poor execution on my part. I learnt from my previous over. The conditions were helping me in terms of not to use much variations but try to bowl a lot more seam-up. So, that was the game-plan and MS definitely wanted me to bowl a lot straighter with no slower balls. Just straight, on to the wicket, with good pace – and that’s what I did in the second over.”
“If you look at it today, I bowled a lot more effort balls than in other games. Normally I bowl slower balls, a lot of variations, yorkers. But today the wicket wasn’t suitable for those type of deliveries. Again, MS knew exactly what is required, and he also knew he can count on me any time to deliver for him.”