I have decided to bat up the order and let others finish: MS Dhoni

In the second ODI, there were a few concerns about Indian skipper MS Dhoni and his ability to finish the matches off. However, in the third ODI at Mohali, the 35-year old Indian skipper pushed himself up the batting order and played second fiddle to the knock from Virat Kohli which saw the Indian skipper smash his first half-century in almost a year.

Speaking about the same, Dhoni added that he had lost his ability to rotate the strike with his partners to a certain extent. He also stated that he would leave the role of the finisher to the other players.

“I have batted lower down for a long time, I think 200 innings down the order. To some extent, I am losing my ability to freely rotate in the middle, so I have decided to bat up and let the others finish,” Dhoni said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

He added, “But I know I should still look for the big shots. Once you get 15-20 runs, you get into the groove. There were points in the middle where I had to pull myself from playing big shots, and batting with Virat helps because we know we can get boundaries, and get those quick singles and doubles.”

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MS Dhoni also had a few words of praise for vice-captain Virat Kohli who smashed a wonderful and unbeaten 154.  “Right from the start, he is somebody who always wanted to improve to win games for India. He is somebody who has learned a lot and he is somebody who knows his strengths really well. It’s very difficult to say what the top level is in cricket, but Kohli has done India proud.”

He also added a few words on Kedar Jadhav, who was the surprise package on the day. “The surprise package has been Kedar, he has always given us wickets in the middle overs, and that’s when you can restrict the opposition. But we have to finish better with the ball, the last five, six, seven overs. I have no clue how he gets wickets. It’s important to have one in the top five to bowl a few, especially with left-handers in the opposition with him being an off-spinner.”

He further said, “I think we would have done better in the last game, but what’s important is coming back and doing well in the next one and I felt it was a very good game for us initially, I thought it would be a high-scoring game, but the bowlers did well in the middle overs to restrict them to 280.”

“Bit of luck went my way, I feel sorry for Ross Taylor, it’s never easy to drop a catch and the batsman carries through. I’ve done that and Brendon McCullum got 300 in Wellington,” Kohli said referring to the drop catch when the batsman was on six.”

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Virat Kohli also added the importance of batting with his captain. “We fed off each other, I fed off MS as well. And it wasn’t the easiest pitch. Some balls were stopping on us. In the past I have tried to play out of my skin, getting overexcited, but I’ve realized if I can time the ball and hit the gaps and run hard, I can still get runs. If a bowler can hit the right areas a be good, a batsman can be good playing proper shots,” Kohli said.

Kane Williamson, the skipper of the New Zealand side also reminisced on the loss. “Obviously frustrating to lose those wickets in the middle in a clump, we were probably looking at a bit more at that stage. But the lower-order performed really well. Neesham and Henry were outstanding,” Williamson said.

“But I suppose if you don’t dismiss this man (Kohli) in a chase. You always want more on the board, we thought at the halfway stage at 160 for 3, we were good. But to lose those wickets and end up on 280, we were pleased. Maybe we wanted more, but with early wickets, we could have made it harder.

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