IPL 2020: Dhoni explains why he was coughing and struggling in last two overs

New Delhi : Mahendra Singh Dhoni was seen coughing and struggling in the last overs of their IPL 2020 game against Surisers Hyderabad. While many confused it with probable symptoms of coronavirus, Chennai Super Kings skipper explained the reason behind it.

Dhoni scored an unbeaten 47 runs on 36 balls but could not manage to take his team to the winning point; Chennai Super Kings lost the game by 7 runs. Talking about his struggle in breathing and coughing in the last overs of the game, he said his throat had got dry so he started to cough.

"I tried to get as much as time as possible. It is quite dry out here. So, the throat gets dry and you start to cough. When you have legal signs, you can take some time off."

"I was not able to middle a lot of deliveries. Was trying to hit it too hard. When the wicket is slightly at the slower side, it is better to time it. Looking at outfield it was subconsciously coming to us to hit the ball hard," Dhoni said after his side’s third defeat in four matches.

"Long time back once we lost three in a row. We need to get a lot of things right. It is the professionalism. We need to take our catches not bowl no-balls. Those are the controllables and may be we are getting too relaxed," he said.

"We have been a bit too relaxed at times. After the 16th over, we had two good overs but overall we could have been slightly better." Nobody wants to drop catches but at the same at this level, we need to draw a line and say these catches that need to be taken especially when the team hasn’t been doing that outstandingly well," he said referring to spilled chances when SRH’s Abhishek Sharma was batting." Catches that these can hamper your knock out stage games. It is very important to be at your best. There are plenty of positives in this game but we will try to come back strong."