International players played irresponsibly: Dhoni

Despite a terrific 87 off just 25 balls by Suresh Raina, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) ended up on the losing side in a high-scoring qualifier 2 match against Kings XI Punjab (KXIP).

While Virender Sehwag's superb 122 off 58 balls powered Punjab to a mammoth 226/6, CSK were well on track in the chase as Raina's blistering knock had powered them to 100 after 6 overs. However, the two-time champions suffered a major setback when the left-hander was run-out and lost wickets in a heap to end up on the losing side by 24 runs.

CSK skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was not impressed with the performance of the foreign players and did not have any second thoughts about criticising them for playing "irresponsible cricket."

"I think the target was achievable when Raina was going. I think in the middle overs there was some very irresponsible cricket from some of the most experienced international cricketers. When the stakes are high you can't commit mistakes," Dhoni said.

While mentioning that there is no stopping Sehwag when he is in full flow, Dhoni said his team did not have the right bowlers to stop the hard-hitting opener.

"We need our spinners to improve their bowling on flat tracks. Once Viru pa gets going there is hardly any bowler who can stop him and in our bowling there is no bowler who can push him on the back foot. They scored 25 runs more than what we would have easily taken but with the way Suresh batted we should have chased it."

Dhoni said Chennai missed Dwayne Bravo in this game, mentioning that the West Indian's ability to deliver in pressure situations would have come in handy.

"We lost one of our retained players (Bravo) at the start and to still reach this far in the tournament is a great achievement. In a game like this Bravo would have been handy. What's done is done, Bravo got injured but still I think we did really well in this tournament."

When asked about CSK's bowling performance in this game, Dhoni gave a sarcastic reply. "I had belief in my bowling that they will let them score more than 200 runs (smiles). I am happy for Preity though, as she has been through the ups and downs with Punjab."