It puts tremendous pressure batting at no.7: MS Dhoni

It puts tremendous pressure batting at no.7: MS Dhoni: MS Dhoni eased himself from playing the strenuous Test cricket in order to focus more on the ODIs and T20I. He wanted to enjoy the shorter formats in which he has achieved tremendous success in the past. However, things haven’t changed much for him.

He wished to bat higher in the batting order and let others handle the responsibility of finishing the innings. However, he says that he has not found any suitable replacement for himself whenever he sees the squad, the batting line-up, not even on paper.

That is what has compelled him to stick with his previous responsibility of batting at 6th or 7th position. “I would say more about my side of the story, if you see once I left Test cricket, I thought ‘Now I am going to enjoy my ODI cricket, I want to bat up the order’. But when I come over here, I see my team, I see the playing XI and I find it very difficult to promote myself because we have that pressure of who is going to bat at No.6, who is going to bat at No.7?” Dhoni said.

After a brief dry phase with the bat, he is back to his winning ways. His superb effort of 92 from 86 balls reflected his experience and natural talent which has earned him so much success. He also wishes to find the same qualities in the players who take the responsibility of batting 6 or 7 in the line-up.

MS Dhoni added, “And, if you see stretches of cricket where teams have done well, the lower order has contributed a lot irrespective of the format. Your lower order needs to perform. So that was the reason I came back over here and I am still batting at No.5 or 6 because I find it really difficult; I can’t really put too much pressure on some of the other youngsters in the side. After playing so many ODIs, if I can’t do it, there are not many who will be able to do it. It’s something that I have to do.” He justified his opinion.

He was backed his under-fire bowlers who brilliantly contributed both with the bat as well as the ball later and helped India level the series. “This is the kind of victory in which the contribution of the bowlers was more than the batsmen, if you compare them, because some bowlers also contributed in terms of runs. In a score of 247, if the bowlers are contributing a score of around 40, that means a lot. I feel very happy about the fact that the bowlers won us the match.” He said.

Dhoni also elaborated the kind of responsibility one has while batting lower down the order. “No.7 is very crucial,” he said. “Even in this game if you see, Mishra was our best bowler in the last game. But we had to drop him, the reason being we want that No.7 to bat. Axar gives us slightly more than Mishra because in the modern game you can’t play with six batters and five bowlers. That day is gone, you can’t really compete when it comes to that.

“But you need somebody who can bat at No.7. And you know, the few people who are there for us – Stuart Binny is one, Jadeja and Axar. These are the three people who can bowl and bat. Other than that there are not many. There are few others in the domestic circuit who are doing well so we will definitely will like to have a look. Because ideally in this game we would have liked to play Mishra, but it just makes it impossible to think about Mishra batting at No.7 and then Harbhajan or Harbhajan at No.7 followed by Mishra.

Dhoni further added, “It just puts too much pressure on the batsmen who are on top because in situations like these when you lose early wickets or you lose a few wickets in quick succession in the middle overs, it just puts tremendous pressure on the two batsmen who are batting. Imagine, you are supposed to hit a six, you want to play the big shot, but you have to be 110% sure once you are hitting, it has to go over the boundary.

“So these are the kinds of pressure that you tend to take and there is no easy way out. It’s very easy to say on paper that this is the combination we should go with, but excuse me, cricket is not played that way. You need to have people who contribute.” He said.

Dhoni also praised the audience of the match and said that the Indore crowd was in full support to both the teams and there was never a dull moment in the match. The crowd was vocal when India got wickets and at the same time supported AB de Villiers. They shared their love equally with us.