England vs India: Lord’s crowd boos MS Dhoni for his defensive game

Former Indian captain MS Dhoni has had a tough time rolling out the big shots at will for some time now. It is a well-known fact now that Dhoni takes a few balls, even overs to get going and only then can he dispatch the ball to and over the ropes. He didn’t have that sort of a luxury in the 2nd ODI against England as the asking rate was constantly mounting. Dhoni couldn’t hit the big shots from the onset and as a result, the team was fighting a lost battle.

He got in the middle when skipper Virat Kohli was out lbw against Moeen Ali. The score was 140/4 then but Suresh Raina and Hardik Pandya the two hitters got out in quick succession and the scoring rate was still way behind the asking rate. Dhoni had Umesh Yadav and other for company now. He didn’t take the risks as he has in the past stated that as soon as he gets out in such a scenario the game would end in no time.

He played a pedestrian knock where his strike rate was just 62. Dhoni when he had No.9 Kuldeep Yadav with him even denied to take singles on the first few balls of the over. The Lord’s crowd that had turned up to watch an exciting contest between two evenly matched teams was disappointed. First with the kind of show the Indian batters put up and then Dhoni was defending balls in a chase that was every moment going away from them. It didn’t go down with them and the crowd made it evident by booing every time he defended.

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Dhoni during his knock of 37 got to 10,000 runs when he scored 33 but didn’t acknowledge it as the game was all but over for Team India. After the match, the experts, as well as fans online, blamed the wicketkeeper-batsman for his inability to score quick runs when the team needed it.

In the post-match presentation skipper, Kohli defended him and said, “The idea was to take the innings deep. We don’t want to lose by 160 or 170 runs. You want to take it as deep as you can and he has got the experience, but some days it just doesn’t come off. People just jump to conclusions, which we as a team don’t. We totally believe in him and in the abilities in all the other players.

“This thing comes up again and again when he is not able to play the way he does. It is very unfortunate that people just jump to conclusions very quickly. When he does well people call him best finisher ever. And when things don’t go well people pounce on him. We all have bad days in cricket. Today was I think a bad day for everyone, not just for him alone. And just as a batting unit we could not click,” Kohli said.

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