India have not won a single Test away from home in the last 12 outings; they were whitewashed in England and Australia, almost to the point of a purge. Yet captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni believes that everything is fine in the world that he rules.
"We have not capitalised when we had crucial situations in the game. That is the only area of concern," he said, on the eve of the first Test. If you talk about the last series, we had one bad session, two-and-a-half hours of bad cricket. Otherwise, we played really good cricket throughout the series. The batsmen batted really well, but just those couple of hours where we did not do well."
He was, of course, referring to the Test matches in South Africa; the fact, though, is that India were drubbed in the one-dayers prior to that; they had an equally bad run in the shorter format games here too, losing 0-4. He may point to the first two matches in which they almost chased down massive totals.
But they somehow allowed New Zealand to come back and turn it into a victory; India may have tied the third ODI, but it was totally downhill after that, getting blown away in the fourth and fifth matches.
Dhoni is right; cricket is all about phases and momentum. You need to create them and grab them. That is probably why he seemed so relaxed and cheerful at the halfway stage of what is turning out to be a disastrous tour. He doesn't think that short-pitched bowling will remain the bane of the side.
"The plus point in Tests is that you can pick and choose when you want to hit it (the short ball) and when you don't. At times, in the ODIs, it gets dominated by the fact that how many have the opposition scored, how many you are chasing. We chase more often than not. If the opposition has scored 280 or 290-odd and we don't get too many runs in the first ten, when they come in they have to play their strokes as the asking rate keeps rising if you keep leaving them. That is the only difference," he explained.
The captain was hopeful that Zaheer Khan will not just bring experience into the attack. "It is about bringing up new plans and helping the youngsters to execute those plans. He is a real help to the fast bowlers as he is someone who has played a lot outside the subcontinent. It is always good to have an experienced bowler in the side," said Dhoni.
"In the subcontinent, the fast bowlers only get two-three short spells. So they look for wickets. Over here, they have to bowl more overs, and have to be a bit more patient."
0 comments:
Post a Comment