The young CSK leg spinner Prashant Solanki has revealed how the CSK captain MS Dhoni helped him plot the dismissal of Shimron Hetmyer in CSK’s last game against Rajasthan Royals.
Prashant Solanki recalled he was called on to bowl towards the end of the innings by Dhoni as he was shuffling other bowlers before that because of the target being low. But, when Solanki came on to bowl, he said he bowled a fuller delivery to Hetmyer which was drilled down the ground for a four.
Then Dhoni hinted to Solanki from behind the stumps itself that he couldn’t bowl that full to the batsman on a surface where the ball was stopping a bit and he had to pull his length back to use the surface a bit more.
Recalling the next delivery to Hetmyer, while talking to Sportskeeda, Solanki said that he bowled a top spinner to Hetmyer with length pulled back the next ball and it resulted in a dismissal, as Hetmyer tried to slog-sweep the delivery and couldn’t really time it well because the length was pulled back.
“Dot balls create pressure in T20 cricket, you have to bowl dot balls,” Dhoni told Prashant Solanki
One of the advices Solanki recalled being given by Dhoni at the very start of his spell was the fact that he had to bowl the dot balls because it’s the pressure of the dot ball which would induce mistakes off a batsman in T20 cricket.
According to Solanki, Dhoni told him it doesn’t matter what kind of delivery he was planning to bowl, whether he was planning to bowl his stock delivery or something else, but he should bowl in areas where there is a possibility of a dot ball.
Prashant Solanki was not a part of the first-choice XI of CSK at the start of the season, but as CSK lost their chance of playoffs qualification, they tried their youngsters and Solanki was one of the youngsters who got playing opportunities for the men in yellow.
