IPL 2018: What should MS Dhoni do to have a successful campaign this year

#2 Adopt a different game plan against spinners

MSD has struggled against spinners in the recent past

MS Dhoni has been struggling against spinners in the last 2-3 years. He has had trouble facing all types of spinners but it has been the leg spinners and the left arm spinners who have troubled him the most. Considering the fact that all teams have quality spinners, Dhoni will have his task cut out. He will be playing 7 of his 14 matches at Chepauk where the ball turns a lot. This will make it harder for Dhoni who hasn't been able to, either rotate strike or attack the spinners.

Dhoni's economy rate against left-arm spinners is only 6.49 and against right-arm spinners, it is a marginally better 6.77 in all types of T20 matches. He had been dismissed by spinners 5 times last season. Now people might think that he was dismissed by spinners only 5 times but, he was dismissed after playing a lot of dot balls against them. In the last season he played 115 balls of spin, he had played 65 dot balls and played only 50 run scoring shots. His dot ball percentage was 56.52. He scored only 97 runs against the spinners at a poor strike rate of 84.37.

Looking at these stats, for a successful IPL campaign this year, Dhoni must play the spinners well and try taking the attack to the spinners.