Gautum Gambhir slammed MS Dhoni’s decision to bat at No 7 in Chennai’s defeat by Rajasthan on Tuesday.

Chasing 217 for victory required an immense effort and questions were asked when the likes of Sam Curran came in ahead of Dhoni, who entered the fray in the 14th over, with CSK needing 103 off 38 balls.

Gambhir, a two-time IPL champion and experienced international, was scathing in his criticism of the decision.

‘I was a bit surprised, to be honest,’ Gambhir told ESPNcricinfo. ‘MS Dhoni batting at No 7? And sending [Ruturaj] Gaikwad before him, Sam Curran before him. Makes no sense to me. In fact, you should be leading from the front. And this is not what you call leading from the front. Batting at No 7 when you’re chasing what … 213 [217]? The game was over. Faf was probably the lone warrior.

‘Yes, you can talk about MS Dhoni’s last over [when he hit three sixes], but it was of no use, to be honest. It was just all personal runs.’

Dhoni was uncharacteristically subdued, given the urgency of the situation, often opting to hit the sweepers for one and give Faf du Plessis the strike. This further perplexed Gambhir.

‘See, if someone else would have done this, some other [batsman] captain had batted No 7, he would have got a lot of flak. It is MS Dhoni – probably why people don’t talk about it,’ Gambhir said.

‘When you don’t have Suresh Raina, you’re making people believe that Sam Curran is better than you. You’re making people believe that Ruturaj Gaikwad, Curran, Kedar Jadhav, Faf du Plessis, M Vijay, all these guys, are better than you.’

CSK’s coach Stephen Fleming, explained the decision, saying: ‘MS is a specialist at the end of the innings, always has been. Curran was there to try and hit us and keep us in the game at that point when we were falling behind. He’s got good hitting power like we saw. Ruturaj … it was his first game and we wanted to get him into the game, into the order. We wanted to be aggressive, we’ve got a long batting order and we’re just trying to use our resources smartly.’