The New Zealand left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner has revealed that his New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson believes in a lot of planning before the games, but his CSK skipper MS Dhoni is quite different as he does most of his analysis on the ground itself and goes by his instincts.
Talking about Dhoni in an exclusive interview with Indian Express, Santner said that Dhoni has captained in so many games that he has now developed the ability to quickly assess what might happen in a game in a particular situation and he makes his decisions accordingly, while Williamson comes with gameplans that are formulated beforehand. However, one similarity between Williamson and Dhoni is that they are both very calm individuals.
Santner has played more cricket under Williamson than Dhoni. The southpaw doesn’t always get the playing opportunity at CSK, as only 4 overseas players are allowed in the playing XI of an IPL team, but having been in the CSK squad for a long time, Santner has seen and observed Dhoni’s leadership style from close quarters.
CSK fans still have fond memories of the match-winning six hit by Mitchell Santner
While he is not a regular in the CSK XI, it’s not that Santner hasn’t had any role to play for CSK at all. He has played a few games for the franchise and has made a couple of match-winning contributions as well. His heroic six to win the game against Rajasthan Royals off the last ball bowled by Ben Stokes in IPL 2019 is still afresh in the memory of CSK fans.
One of the reasons why Santner hasn’t been a regular in the CSK XI is because CSK already has got the services of Ravindra Jadeja, who is a similar sort of player like Santner. Both Jadeja and Santner are primarily left-arm spinners and lower order bats, who can play big shots towards the end of the innings.
To have some variety in the attack, CSK has preferred to go with Moeen Ali rather than Mitchell Santner as an overseas player in recent times, because Moeen is not just a top-order bat, he is also an off-spinner who turns the ball away from the left-handers.
