After a poor start to IPL III, Yesterday's win over Mumbai proves the Chennai skipper has turned things around

Dhoni's side reaping rewards for commitment

After a poor start to IPL III, Yesterday's win over Mumbai proves the Chennai skipper has turned things around

In the Indian Premier League, a good start is considered the key to hopes of grabbing a semi-final spot.

Chennai Super Kings, however, have proved that if a team has the depth, it can still rise to be counted as one of the favourites despite a poor start.u00a0

In the three years of the tournament, the Chennai team has steadily built a reputation of being one of the most hardened outfits of the IPL. Their record speaks for itselfu00a0-- runners-up in the first IPL, semi-finalists in the second.

It's the ability to soak in the pressure that sets Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men apart. They have this knack of wriggling their way out of the toughest of situations, and after another poor start this season they look well on their way to performing another Houdini act.

They were down for the count losing five of the first seven games of the first leg.

But, in a typical tenacious response, Dhoni has brought his team back from the brink by winning the first three matches at the start of the second-leg.

Yesterday, CSK only enhanced their reputation, making table-toppers Mumbai Indians look ordinary with a 24-run win in their crucial game at the Chidambaram Stadium. The win helped CSK leapfrog to fourth (10 points) on the table which MI continue to lead with 14 points.

India captain Dhoni is known to thrive under pressure and it seems he is relishing the challenges of the high-pressure T20 league. In the first year too, he managed to pull CSK from a hole when they were left with a must-win situation in their last league game against Deccan Chargers to qualify for the semis.

In the second edition in South Africa, CSK had an equally disastrous start when they had only one win from their first five games. They turned things around with five wins in a row from the sixth game onwards to march into the semis.

Against MI yesterday, the situation looked tailor-made for the CSK skipper. The wicket was not a typical Chennai batting beauty and most batsmen struggled to come to terms with it. As a result, Dhoni's 18-ball 31 proved to be the difference as CSK defended 165 quite comfortably.

MI's best bet was skipper Sachin Tendulkar (45 off 35 balls) who looked on course to anchoring another successful run chase but was overcome by dehydration at the half-way stage of the game. CSK seized the opportunity to choke MI.

"Having won three matches in a row, we are in a good position to reach the semi-finals. We want to keep this streak going and have a few big matches coming up. All of them are do-or-die matches," said man-of-the-match, Suresh Raina.