By: BCCI
‘Expectation’ is a word that can either bog you down or get the best out of you. Over the years, some have thrived under it and used it to reach greater heights. India captain MS Dhoni is one such example who has shouldered expectations right since his arrival in international cricket. Over the years the same expectations have taken varied roles – as a captain, a batsman and a wicketkeeper. On Wednesday afternoon when the Indian batting order was falling like nine pins, one could expect only a certain MS Dhoni to get the team out of the rubbles.
Through his course of an unbeaten 92, Dhoni the batsmen played different roles according to the changing phases of the game. He walked in to bat at No.5 and tried to build partnerships even when the batsmen at the other end failed to give him company for long.
Towards the end, he let himself loose and took the team to a defendable total. Dhoni agreed he had put in a lot of thought behind his knock. Talking about crucial junctures in the game Dhoni said, “Once we lost Ajinkya Rahane and a few other wickets, I was thinking maybe I should play the big shots. I wasn’t sure how long the lower-order would survive with me. That was the period I said ‘no let’s look to play a few more deliveries, let’s look to play 50 overs and look to hit in the last couple of overs.’
“It was important that we got some kind of partnership going at that point of time and that’s what we did. Keeping wickets was important and that’s we did and we managed to get 240-odd runs. I thought I should have played a bit more aggressively – a few big shots – but I had to curb that instinct, and looked to get anything over 230 runs. In situations like these when you lose early wickets, or if you lose wickets in succession in the middle overs, it just puts tremendous pressure on the batsmen batting in the middle. Just imagine you want to hit a six, you want to be 110% sure your hit has to go over the boundary. These are the kind of pressure that you tend to take. There are no easy ways out.”
Despite setting a modest total, Dhoni said he was confident that they could defend the total. He was particularly happy that the bowlers played an instrumental role in the team’s victory. “After we played the first 50 overs, we thought it was a score that we could still look to defend. What was important for us was to get early breakthroughs and that was provided by the spinners. The spinners bowled well on a pitch where there was less assistance for them but they were still able to bowl good line and lengths and got early wickets which were crucial. Later on, the fast bowlers took wickets at crucial intervals.
“It was good to see our bowlers defend 250 on a pitch that was good to bat on. Though the spinners started off well, I thought the fast bowlers’ spell in the middle was very crucial. That really gave us chance to have a look into their lower middle-order. This was one victory where bowlers contributed more than batsmen, when you compare. I definitely feel very happy that our bowlers won us the match.”
With the 22-run victory, the series is well poised with both teams bagging a win each and leveling the series 1-1. For the team, this win held a lot of importance especially after missing out by narrow margins in the first T20I and ODI. “It is a very good victory for us to start off. We were really into the game in the first T20I in Dharamsala but were not able to win it. The same thing happened in the last game that we played in Kanpur. A lot of times you play good cricket, maybe 80 or 90 percent, but it depends whether that 10 percent of the bad phase that you had in the game, how bad it turns out to be. It depends what was the timing of that particular error that can have a big impact on the game. I think this win was very important for us.”
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