Crediting Mahendra Singh Dhoni for India’s win against Australia in the fourth ODI of the Tri-series, Australian skipper Michael Clarke said, "Dhoni played really well. He is a class player. And his statistics show that. He is a very good striker of the ball and you saw that in the last over with that six that he hit off Clint McKay."
Man-of-the-match was also all praises for his skipper, saying that the ‘Captain Cool’ sobriquet befits him. “Dhoni has always been a good finisher. He stays calm and that important in these situations,” he said.
Sunil Gavaskar in his column in The Times Of India too praises Dhoni saying the strong bottom hand that gets Mahendra Singh Dhoni into trouble in Test matches came to the Indian team’s rescue when the Indian skipper, using that right hand, hit one of the biggest sixes seen at the Adelaide Oval, to get India within a boundary of winning the game. “Dhoni looked out of sorts at the start of his innings as if he was a bit under the weather. In the hot Adelaide weather he was wearing a sweater that suggested that he might have caught a bug or something, but that did not stop his energetic running between the wickets and when the big shot was needed he produced it with ease and once again showed why he is one of the finest finishers in this format of the game,” writes Gavaskar.
India's tour of Australia could've been rated an abject failure so far if it hadn't been for one player Virat Kohli, writes Ian Chappell in his column in Hindustan Times. “Kohli has grown in stature on the tour, rising above the batting failures, non-athletic fielding and magnanimous bowling of some of his more experienced team-mates to gradually stamp his authority on the international game. Until this series, he was accepted as a fine short form player but it has been his improvement in the Test match arena that has stamped him as an integral part of India's way forward,” writes Chappell.
The fate of Indian cricket will now depend on the outcome at the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) working committee meeting in Chennai on Monday, reports The Tribune. The top brass of BCCI and Sahara, which had severed ties with the Board and had pulled out of the IPL, met on Sunday to discuss the contentious issues amid indications that a breakthrough has been achieved. Both parties have agreed to discuss the matter further in Monday's BCCI Working Committee meeting in Chennai but did not disclose what transpired in Sunday's crucial meeting.
A tinge of green on the pitch prompted the East Zone captain Natraj Behera to take a brave call to bowl first in a five-day game. And his bowlers backed him to the hilt by packing off Central Zone for 133 on the opening day of the Duleep Trophy final at the Holkar stadium on Sunday, writes TOI.
By the close, the visitors had consolidated their position at 88 for three, with in-form Anustup Majumdar looking good on 46 and supported well by Wriddhiman Saha on 14.
