Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni
Virat Kohli (L) and MS Dhoni (AFP Photo)

Chennai captain MS Dhoni was critical of the nature of Chepauk pitch in their opening clash of the Indian T20 League against Bangalore on Saturday. (READ: Virat Kohli upbeat despite a ‘scrappy start’)

On a sluggish track, Virat Kohli-led Bangalore struggled against the spinners before folding for 70 – the sixth-lowest total in the tournament’s history. Chennai did register a seven-wicket win but needed 17.4 overs to chase down the small target.

“I never expected the wicket to play how it actually played,” Dhoni said during the post-match presentation. “It was too slow. Definitely it needs to be a lot better than where it is right now. Even with the dew, it was still turning a bit. It needs to be high scoring. Something like 140-150 is something you are looking at; 80, 90, 100 or 120 is very low scoring. If you saw how the wicket played and if you have genuine spinners in your attack it will be very difficult to score runs. So the wicket needs to get much better than where how it is now.”

Kohli also expressed his displeasure at the surface on which spinners claimed 10 of the 13 wickets to fall during the course of the match.

“The good thing is a game like this out of the way rather than having it at a very important stage in the tournament. No one thought the wicket’s going to play the way it played. We thought somewhere 140-150 would be an ideal score because of the dew factor later on. But I don’t think either of the team would have enjoyed that kind of a pitch, especially in T20 cricket where guys want to get runs and put the runs on the board or chase scores down,” Kohli said after the match.