Once again harping on the “process” after India’s embarrassing 214-run loss against South Africa in the fifth and final ODI, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni insisted that issues need to be addressed soon to get the national cricket team in order.
“I know India is more about result, but at the same time you won’t always get the results if you are not looking into the process. It’s a tough situation,” Dhoni said.
“But at the same time we are looking for solution. We have to try a few other things, because if you are doing the same thing, you will get the same result,” he explained further.
Clinching the five-match rubber 3-2, Proteas registered their first-ever bilateral ODI series in India, which comes straight after their 2-0 triumph in the three T20s.
“We have to look at the larger (longer) picture. (Otherwise) may be you will win a series here and there. But to be consistent you have to have a settled team. To a lot of extent our team does not look to be that settled,” Dhoni said candidly.
The Ranchi star has been criticised for making quite a few changes in the batting order, but defended his strategy and said he had done it to find out the best solution to different situations the team would be facing.
“You have to look at the venue, what kind of wicket is provided and accordingly you have to make changes. I have made a few changes in the batting order to see what gives more strength to our batting order, what looks like a very good composition when you are chasing. All these things you have to study.”
He also declared that Stuart Binny, who figured in only one game of the 50-over rubber, remained the best seam-bowling all-rounder while left-handers Axar Patel, who played in four out of five, and the axed Ravindra Jadeja were the country’s best bets as spin bowling all rounders.
“We will keep talking we don’t have seaming all rounders. We have tried Stuart. People have criticised that also, but if you look at all-rounders in India, who is your best seaming bowling all-rounder — it’s Stuart Binny — and the two best spinning all rounders — Ravinder Jadeja and Axar Patel.
“Whether you like it or not these are our best seaming and spinning all-rounders and we have to make the best out of them,” he emphasised.
“We have been struggling with the seaming all rounder. We feel our lower order batting is slightly on the lighter side when we play against good fast bowlers. Actually it puts lot of pressure on the top six batsmen, if you lose one or two early wickets then you have only three or four batsmen to play with as you can’t rely too much on your lower order.
“We have to find ways to see the best bowling composition for us, but at the same time not at the cost of being too light when it comes to bating. We have to address these problems,” Dhoni noted.
Asked what went wrong in the series decider, he replied
“Yeh sawal aaj mat poocho match me galti kahan hui. Sade charso run ke aaspaas bane hai aur aap poochte hain galti kahan hui (Don’t ask me today what went wrong. Close to 450 runs had been scored by South Africa, and you are asking this),” to peals of laughter from the media persons.
‘msd not flexible in handling bowlers’
Critical of the way Dhoni rotated Indian bowlers during the crushing loss to South Africa in the ODI series-decider, former skipper Sunil Gavaskar said the captain was just not flexible enough in his approach.
“Mahendra Singh Dhoni had no flexibility while making bowling changes. But then again he didn’t have much options. Earlier also, we have seen that he has pretty set ideas when it comes to bowling changes. But none of the bowlers clicked today,” Gavaskar told NDTV.
In fact, Gavaskar said bowling is a massive cause of concern for the Indian team as was exposed by the South African onslaught at the Wankhede.
“Bowling is a major worry for India now. We have seen in the T20I and ODI series how they have been ordinary. But the Indian bowlers did not bowl accordingly. The fast bowlers were constantly using short pitched deliveries but at 135 kmph,” he explained.
‘will look into Shastri-curator fiasco’
The BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur on Monday said that the board will look into the details about Indian Team Director Ravi Shastri’s alleged confrontation with Wankhede Stadium curator Sudhir Naik ahead of the fifth match against South Africa.
“We will look into the details of Team Director (Shastri) allegedly confronting curator of Wankhede Stadium yesterday. We had done the same in (sic) Australia (without referring to incident of apparently Kohli and Indian journo). Same yardstick will be applied,” Thakur told reporters on Sunday.
Shastri did not like the flat track that was produced by former India opener Naik and he apparently expressed his displeasure at nature of the strip. The Team Director, allegedly used some harsh words and Naik also reacted sharply.
The curator, who has also been Zaheer Khan’s coach, then reported the matter to the MCA.
Thakur also said that ‘Conflict of Interest’ issue will be discussed at BCCI’s AGM here on Nov 9.
Don’t write off Dhoni yet: Engineer
Kolkata: Former India wicketkeeper Farokh Engineer on Monday backed under-fire limited overs skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, saying the time has not yet come to write him off.
“Dhoni has done a good job so far. I like him. He reminds me of my younger days. Everyone has his days. We shouldn’t be too keen on packing him off,” said Engineer. “We should allow Dhoni to decide when he wants to finish,” he said in a media interaction at the Calcutta Sports Journalists’ Club here.
India will now be taking on South Africa in a four-match Test series under Virat Kohli’s captaincy.
Asked if it is time to hand over the responsibility to Kohli in ODI as well, Engineer said: “Kohli is a fantastic cricketer and deserves to be captain. But we need to give him time.”