‘Don’t get too close to action…’: Dhoni complains to umpires about spidercam | Cricket

MS Dhoni had a mixed day with the gloves in hand in the IPL 2023 match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore. In the second over of the RCB chase, he was late to react to an outside edge from Faf du Plessis and the ball flew towards the boundary. It proved to be costly for CSK as du Plessis, who was at nought at the time, went on to smash 62 off 33 balls. But Dhoni made a solid comeback by taking two skiers of Glenn Maxwell and du Plessis to not only redeem himself but also swing CSK back into the contest.

While taking Maxwell’s catch, Dhoni had to change the position of his gloves at the last moment. After completing the catch, the CSK skipper immediately went to the umpire and complained about the positioning of the spidercam.

After CSK’s narrow eight-run win, Devon Conway, who was adjudged Player of the Match for his brilliant 83 off 45 balls, indicated it wasn’t easy for players to go about their job seamlessly with the shadow of the hovering spider cam causing problems. He added that things shouldn’t come to a point where technology interferes with the game.

“It’s nice to have that technology to show different angles of the game but there come a point where (it) can’t get too involved and interfere with the game. MS (Dhoni) was probably trying to speak to the umpires, saying ‘don’t get too close to the action and try to avoid too much (of what’s) going on,” said Conway.

“It (interference) happened a couple of times where the ball had got very close to the spider cam as well as the wires, that can obviously put a fielder off. I think Faf stepped away a couple of times because the shadows of the spidercam were in his way. It’s obviously a little bit testing for guys,” he said.

Conway, Ajinkya Rahane and Shivam Dube played a pivotal role with the bat, scoring at a strike rate of more than 180 to help CSK post the big total.

“Tonight (Monday) was a really good surface to bat on, so for us to get those big totals it’s about trying to create a strike rate of around 200-plus,” said Conway at the post-match press conference.

The New Zealander said that though he was some way off the 200-plus strike rate, he was happy Rahane (37 runs, 185 strike rate), Dube (52, 192.59), Ambati Rayudu (14, 233.33) and Moeen Ali (19 not out, 211.11), had brilliant strike rates.

“I didn’t manage to achieve that (200-plus rate) but some of the work done by the other players, like Ajinkya, Dube, Rayudu and Moeen Ali in the end, they all chipped in with really good strike rates and that’s what got us to a very competitive total.