“The way Chennai played today, my heart is not beating that much for them today. I am quite upset. We will have to discuss their team selection. Everyone was saying how poor CSK’s bowling is, but CSK are alive in this tournament, just because of their bowling,” a furious Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.

Ashwin was of the opinion that CSK made blunders on several fronts. He particularly pointed out not playing West Indian spinner Akeal Hosein. The spinner had accounted for Abhishek Sharma in the T20 World Cup in a must-win Super 8s game. That, and in light of the poor form of Travis Head, Hosein could have been a great inclusion.

“They defended two totals in Chennai, and even today, they gave the game to the batters on a plate. I will not even consider the mistakes of the batters. I want to ask just one question. You have Travis Head, who is not in form; he is not able to get the ball onto the middle of the bat, and you have Akeal Hosein, who dismissed Abhishek Sharma in the T20 World Cup. You cannot bring in (referring to Matthew Short) someone just because he can bowl off-spin,” Ashwin said.

“Fine, you picked Matt Short. I can agree with that call, and he should be praised for just giving away 13 runs in two overs. But it felt like he was brought in only for bowling against the left-handers. You cannot go into a game like this. You kept Hosein out. Short played 30 balls to score 34 runs. If he had scored 45 runs in that same time, we would have won the match,” Ashwin went into detail to make his point.