Team India ended their long English sojourn with a thrilling game of T20 in which they fell short by an excruciating three runs at Edgbaston.
With 17 runs needed from the final over, chasing England’s 180, MS Dhoni dispatched the first ball for a six, before missing a couple of big swipes. In what turned out to be an exhilarating last over, Dhoni refused a single off the penultimate ball and couldn’t clear the boundary off the last.
Explaining his tactic, the Indian captain said he decided to take the responsibility of seeing the team through as his partner, Ambati Rayudu, had just come in to bat.
“Rayudu had just come in to bat and when batting at 6 or 7, it is very difficult for a batsman to come in and play shots straight away, especially for a top-order batsman like Rayudu, who is not used to such situations,” Dhoni insisted.
“So, when I hit the first ball for a six, I thought it was a better option for me to take the strike,” he added. “I made the decision before the start of the final over that if I play six deliveries, I had a good chance of scoring those 17 runs. Rayudu too could have hit a boundary but because that’s my strength, I took the responsibility. I took the decision but it didn’t pay off in this game.”
“Getting 17 from six balls is always going to be difficult,” Dhoni concluded. “But I was glad that I got a boundary off the first ball of the over, which meant the pressure was pretty even (between me and the bowler). There were at least two more deliveries that I could have hit for boundaries but it was one of those days when I didn’t middle it.”
While making the assessment of the performance of his bowling departments, Dhoni had good words for leg-spinner Karn Sharma, who finished with impressive figures of four overs, 28 runs and one wicket on debut.
“It was a decent wicket; didn’t have much turn on offer but he bowled well,” Dhoni said. “A few deliveries were on the shorter side, which he got hit off but other than that, he was good.”
“Even the short balls he bowled were intended to be short because he was looking for the batsman to step out and hit. He bowled the wrong ones and wanted to bowl the back of a length, trying to get the batsman to hit across.”
“It was a strategy that didn’t work but overall his control is quite good,” he added. “He has a quick action but he looks to bowl the right line although he is not a big turner of the ball. It was a good start for him.”
Image Courtesy: BCCI.tv
