IPL 2024: Dhoni is in incredible space, will continue to evolve, says Mike Hussey

Having relinquished his captaincy duties at Chennai Super Kings, talismanic Mahendra Singh Dhoni is in an incredible space at the moment and will continue to “evolve,” says batting coach Mike Hussey.

In what appears to be his last season in the IPL, Dhoni has been in explosive form in the ongoing season and is striking at a rate of 255.88, taking his game to a new level.

“He’s just in a wonderful place in his career. He’s at a place where he’s comfortable, he’s happy, and he’s enjoying his cricket,” Hussey said ahead of CSK’s home match against Lucknow Super Giants here on Tuesday.

“He’s practiced and prepared really well coming into the tournament. Of course, bowlers are coming up with different plans against him because he’s probably the greatest finisher of all time.” The 48-year-old Australian acknowledged that Dhoni would keep improving and make it tougher for bowlers, even at the fag end of his career.

“They (bowlers) need to come up with different ideas. So that’s one of the wonderful things about MS. He’ll continue to evolve and continue even at this stage of his career to make himself better and make it harder for the bowlers to bowl to him,” Hussey said.

Hussey expressed confidence in Rachin Ravindra’s mental resilience despite recent misses and said a good knock from the Kiwi may just be around the corner.

Ravindra has hit a rough patch after an impressive start to the season. In his last five innings, he has managed just 50 runs.

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“He’s going well. Batting can be very fickle, you know, especially at the top of the order. If you get on to a bit of a roll, you can keep it rolling, unfortunately, he’s missed out a couple of times, but he’s still in a good place mentally.

“His game looks good, and he’s just one inning closer to that big score. He’s still in a positive frame of mind. He’s batting well at the nets, so we’re hopeful that there’s a big score very soon,” he said.

CSK were beaten by LSG in their previous outing, but Hussey said they are not looking at this as a “revenge match.”.

“Not really. Every game is a tough one. We played them in their conditions, and I thought we put up a decent fight.

“They (LSG) have been a very good team for a number of years now. But the bonus for us is that we know the conditions well, and there will be an extra player we will have tomorrow in the Yellow Army,” Hussey said.

LSG skipper KL Rahul has been the team’s leading run-getter with 286 runs from seven innings at a strike rate of 143.

Hussey said their bowling plan would be to move the bowl early on and take the key wickets of Rahul and Quinton de Kock up front.

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“Rahul has been a fantastic player for a long period of time. He’s very difficult to bowl to because he plays great shots all around the ground. He seems like he’s in a really good mindset at the moment as well, so he’s confident. And he’s playing some good cricket, so that makes him very dangerous,” he said.

“He’s also got the ability to go on and play that big inning.” He can score 80+, so if you’ve got a player in your batting order who can score 80 plus, then you’re going to be in most games.” I guess if we can get the ball moving early, that would be a big bonus for us. You know, to both him and De Kock. That was one of our problems in the last match. So our focus will be to try and get that new ball moving. Any batter, whether you’re KL or anyone else, can be vulnerable against the moving ball,” he added. CSK will play back-to-back three games on the home turf, but Hussey is not thinking too far ahead and is taking one match at a time.

“Of course, it is going to be really important. The closer you get to the back end of the tournament, the win becomes really important,” the former CSK opener said.

“Wins are important at any time of the tournament. We got off to a pretty good start, and we have a very good record at home.

“If we can play well in the next three games, it gives us a really good chance. However, it is also dangerous for us to think it is just going to happen, and it is dangerous for us to think too far ahead as well,” he added.