Former Indian cricketers agree than MS Dhoni needs to bat at No. 4

A plethora of former stars has stated that they would like to see Indian skipper MS Dhoni bat up the order in the No. 4 position. Dhoni promoted himself up the order ahead of Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav to go up the order and bat. This decision paid dividends as Dhoni scored an impressive 80 and played second-fiddle to Virat Kohli’s exuberance, something that not many had seen in a while.

While the likes of Sourav Ganguly already stated his feelings about Dhoni playing in the No. 4 role, it was clear that there were others who shared Ganguly’s sentiment about the incumbent India skipper.

Anshuman Gaekwad, the former Indian team coach was the first to lead the applause for the Indian skipper. “He is been using himself as a floater in ODIs and T20 so he has to bat according to the situation in a match. But Dhoni has been giving the opportunity to the youngsters to deliver in crunch situations. But I feel now he should bat at number 4 in this team”

Nikhil Chopra, India’s former off-spinner also said, “You want to make things simple in ODIs, you get 300 deliveries and you want your best batsmen to go out there and give themselves the opportunity to bat for a maximum number of deliveries out of those 300. We don’t need to say how good a player MS Dhoni is as his record speaks for itself but I don’t know why in the past, maybe because of team combination he started pushing himself back and giving himself fewer opportunities. But we have to remember that MS Dhoni became MS Dhoni because he used to bat up the order and he had similar sort of knocks where he put fear in the opposition. When that happens some of your other batsmen in the batting line-up reap rewards with him”

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Finally, Reetinder Sodhi said, “I think Dhoni should now bat at number 4. He has to look at his performances, if he wants to take time on the crease, get time and balls to win matches then he should bat at number 4. We do not have someone who has cemented No.4 spot in the ODI team and with someone like MSD coming in with Kohli at 3, it gives strength to the team & they can shape any game. They have a good relationship not only on the field but off it as well. Virat Kohli always praises Dhoni and says he has learned a lot from him, he does not need to do it given his stature now but he always does. We have two genuine match winners in the playing XI”