It’s no secret that Suresh Raina has struggled against the short balls lately, but India skipper MS Dhoni is not much concerned and lent his weight behind the southpaw.
Dhoni insisted that Raina is no exception and other batsmen have also failed to adjust to Australian conditions, which offer extra bounce to bowlers, making the short-pitched bowling hard to deal with.
“It’s the media that makes a big deal of this. Batsmen from other countries also get out to the short-pitched deliveries but it is something that is put only on our head,” Dhoni said. “He (Raina) is the one who gets out to the short ball, bowl short to him. I think he is batting well”
“So Raina is the best that we have got and we need to back him,” Dhoni explained “Because if you don’t back him, the new guy who comes, he will be like, let me bat for myself and that’s not a good habit to grow. We don’t want that to happen in our team.”
“If you are batting in the 40th over, how much can you score? And if you get out, you will get out for 20-25 runs. So at the end of the third game, we would hear things like, “he is not scoring, he is out of form, he is only making 20 runs!”
India have already qualified for the quarterfinals after winning four back-to-back World Cup games, and they will next lock horns with Ireland at the Seddon Park, Hamilton.
