Friday, June 12, 2009

Dhoni's stinker

Dhoni's 11 off 23 balls against the Windies in this Super Eights game of the ICC T20 World Cup must rank as quite possibly, one of the worst innings I've seen played by an Indian batsman in a major international game. I'm going to be holding my nose for a while after this one.

Addendum: The Indian innings thus far (14th over) is a stinker overall.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Krish said...

Dhoni did this to himself. He tried coming in at No. 3. It didn't work. So he dropped to No. 5. Now Raina doesn't know what to do at No. 3 and Dhoni doesn't know what to do at No. 5. Unfortunate time to do needless experiments.

4:18 PM  
Blogger Megha said...

that aweful batting effort cost us the match...or was it the pathetic bowling at death??

4:20 PM  
Blogger Tifosi Guy said...

Sure it was all MSD's fault. Agreed it was bad batting - but what about the first three blokes who got out ?

I'm not so sure, the likes of Yusuf Pathan and co would last more than 5-6 overs tops. Gambhir got out in the 5'th over. MSD had to reign in to prevent a worse collapse.If he had gone - even 153 would not have been reached.

The main reason the game was lost was the poor bowling. 153 was a defendable score. The bowling let India down.

39 to get of 4 overs. WI had 7 wickets in hand. If Ishant had bowled a decent over, then under the pressure who knows? Instead he bowled tripe and the game was done and dusted.

If MSD is to be blamed - blame it on his bowling choices. His batting while slow, wasn't the reason the game was lost.

5:43 PM  
Anonymous K said...

Reminds me of Tendulkar's 4 off 23 balls against Bangladesh in the 2007 50-50 WC. So much for trying to protect his wicket. India would probably have ended with around the same total even if he had got out first ball!

10:34 PM  
Blogger Megha said...

TG,

I think a lot of factors contributed to the loss. Not just Dhoni's innings.

The batting effort, yes. Losing wickets early was a big blow. also, if some good hitting in the end got India to 153, I imagine the score would have been better if MSD had played less of those dot balls. More to chase for WI.

The bowling effort, yes. 153 _is_ defendable. So are 39 off the last 4 overs. Some aweful bowling there gave it away.

The fielding effort, yes. I did not sense any energy in the team's fielding. Dhoni missed a very easy run out chance. Things could have panned out differently otherwise.

3:43 PM  
Blogger Samir Chopra said...

Krish: Yup, he doesn't know what his own role is.

Megha: Both for sure!

TFG: It wasn't just that it was slow - it was slow against the Windies' pie-chuckers. Thats what gets my goat - not even singles against that dibbly-dobbly nonsense.

K: Pennywise and pound foolish.

10:31 AM  
Blogger BadCheetah said...

If a captain gets flowers and ads when he wins, he should also get the belt when he loses. Hats off to WI for keeping the momentum going thru the match. Dhoni in the middle overs coming at No. 3 is no way justified. The bowling has been pathetic. I have no idea why RP Singh has not been played yet. He has been the most successful bowler in the IPL. Ishant is not in form. No rocket science here. India needs to pull up their socks as it is difficult going on. Or else we should be ready to wave the ICC cup goodbye.

12:14 PM  

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