da pinnacle： A confident Mahendra Singh Dhoni praised his bowlers for the fantastic winagainst Australia
S Rajesh in Durban22-Sep-2007
Mahendra Singh Dhoni singled out Sreesanth for his contribution to the victory © AFP
A confident Mahendra Singh Dhoni praised his bowlers for the fantastic winagainst Australia which has put India in the final of the ICC World Twenty20.Dhoni also lauded the team spirit in the camp, saying the entire squad wasenjoying themselves in the field, and playing hard, but with littlepressure of expectation.Looking back at the game, and the decision to bowl Harbhajan Singh in the18th over – in which he gave away only three runs and took a wicket -Dhoni said: “Harbhajan wanted the responsibility – he said ‘give me theball I want to bowl’. He had the confidence. We needed a guy who had theconfidence at the time. He proved it – he got us a wicket and got us intothe game.”The other interesting decision was to hold back Joginder Sharma’s fourthover till the final over of the innings. Dhoni explained his decisionthus: “When Joginder came to bowl, Australia didn’t have too many options -they had to increase the run rate and they had to target our fifth bowler.My thinking then was that the batsmen are quite relaxed; let’s see howthey go after Joginder when they are under pressure. I know he’s not thequickest bowler, but he has the ability to bowl at the end, and he provedit again.”There were words of encouragement for Sreesanth, who finished withexcellent figures of 2 for 12 from four overs. “He got [Adam] Gilchrist and [Matthew] Hayden and got wickets when we wanted him to. I would love him to perform like this in the finals as well.”Dhoni also said the win was very significant, especially since this wassuch a young team. “Every win means a lot because a lot of the team isyoung and new, and it’s a big stage – the Twenty20 World Cup. The sort ofteams we’ve defeated in do-or-die games was quite exhausting. The bestthing is everyone is enjoying – not just their own performance but alsoeveryone else’s. There’s no superstar in the team.”Looking ahead to the final, Dhoni repeated that he would ensure none ofhis team members take additional pressure upon themselves. “I know it’sthe biggest stage and the biggest match, but taking additional pressuredoesn’t help anyone. We’ll just take it like another India-Pakistan match.And it helps that we’ve been playing each other more regularly recently.”The pressure will be immense, but not on us because I don’t believe intaking pressure and neither does my team. But we need to play withintensity and we are ready to do it.”He said it was more important to fix the level of expectations internallyrather than go by what others expect of the team. “I play according to myexpectation. I don’t want others to fix that level of expectation. When wego back to the hotel we should know that we gave our best. It’s not forothers to fix expectations – that only adds pressure. We’re comingdirectly from England, so we don’t know the expectations – in a way thathas helped us.”