India ride on Dhoni’s 72 to beat England in 2nd ODI
Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was all praise for his teammates, who had dominated the second ODI, but when quizzed about the game-changing moment, he wasn’t sure of just one instance and went about making a jocular remark - ‘the turning point was when the wicket started to turn’.
Indeed, half the maverick act was performed by the surface, which behaved contrary to expectations. He hailed the young bowlers who realised the potential of the wicket and came out on top. “We are going through a stage wherein our top few bowlers are either injured or out so it was important for the other bowlers to do well.”
“It is good to see youngsters like Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shami Ahmed chipping in,” said the Indian skipper. He also hailed the impact Ravindra Jadeja had on the game and said it was high- time t h e Saurashtra boy performed with the bat.
“He has done well as a bowler in recent times and also scored a few 20s and 30s, but it was time he scored a bigger one. We all know he is capable of hitting big sixes and he played really well,” complemented the skipper.
Meanwhile, the England captain had no second thoughts on congratulating the Indian side that dominated them, but still managed to see a silver lining. “It is a big loss, yes. But we can take a lot of good things from the way we bowled in the first 40 overs,” said Alastair Cook.
The English opener credited Dhoni and Jadeja for taking the game away from them and held firm to his strategy of not bowling spin at the death overs when the duo were firing all cylinders. “If there is one player in the world you can’t bowl spin in the end overs it is Dhoni,” said Cook.
“He is a very dangerous batsman and you saw that in their Pakistan series as well. Also Jadeja is a very good player. He has three triple hundreds in first class and that speaks for it,” he said.