'Chasing big totals not good for cricket'

NAGPUR: After his team chased down another mammoth total for the second time in the series against the Australian team here at the VCA stadium on Wednesday, Indian skipper MS Dhoni said that chasing such big scores isn't good for the health of cricket.

"The new bowlers are getting smashed around. The fast bowlers are bowling with their third-man and fine-leg up. Not sure where it's going but if we are chasing like this it is not going to be good for the long-term health of the game. Only seeing boundaries and sixes for seven hours," Dhoni said during the post-match presentation.

Dhoni then praised his top-order batsmen who were instrumental in turning the game in India's favour. "We knew a bit of dew will come later and now it is slightly easy as we can break down the game at intervals.

We can evaluate after the 30-over mark as to what we need to do and what we can achieve. We were evenly placed. I think Shikhar (Dhawan) and Rohit (Sharma) batted really well. Shikhar got a century but for Rohit it was one of those days when you can't find the gaps and he absorbed the pressure so well.

I think Virat was brilliant, the reason being that as the ball got old he was counterattacking and maintaining a good position when going for the big shots," he said. Australian captain George Bailey was disappointed to have lost the match but said he had no complaints.

"It is disappointing (that we lost). Still a beautiful batting wicket so you don't see many batters complaining about it. Virat played an unbelievable knock and when a guy is batting well that is all you can do," he said.

"We needed to find early breakthroughs. You can always do things differently, that never changes, win or lose, but we fought our way back into the game really well. We made them hit really good shots." Reminded that he has scored the highest runs by an Australian against India when he hit his career-best 156 on Wednesday, Bailey said, "But we are losing mate."

Meanwhile, the man-of-the-match Virat Kohli said: "Shikhar (in pix) was getting a bit of cramp and it was important that one of us went through to the end. I took some risks early on to attack the bowlers.

I thought I should let Shikhar bat through, and then once he got out, I thought I should finish the game. I had confidence in my ability and backed myself. I like bating under lights and if you have a target on board its always easy to analyse how many runs you need and how to go about it."

Share it Please

Tweet

Shweta Pandey

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation.