Dharamsala: Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday defended two of his Indian teammates Gautam Gambhir and Ravichandran Ashwin who didn’t performed well in ODI series against Pakistan and England.
"Yeah, Gautam has been going through a rough phase but he is an experienced player. I believe he has batted much better in the last few games. In some of the earlier matches, he was looking tentative and his footwork was not up to his standards but in this series he came out good in this series as he got some good starts but he wasn’t able to capitalize on those," Dhoni said at the post-match media conference here.
"I believe he is improving and don't forget he is one of the best player of spin bowling. Ideally, we want him to bat till the 40th over to put big score on the board," said Dhoni defending the Delhi south-paw, who has scored only 156 runs in his last eight ODIs.
Similarly when asked about a sudden decline in off-spinner Ashwin's form, Dhoni stated, "May be he was trying to do too much of variations but he has now realised his mistake. In the last couple of matches, he has been more consistent about line and length. He has not used too many variations and was trying to bowl in one line.
"But then we also need a variety in our spin department and Ashwin’s variation adds strength to it. The new ODI rule of bowling with five fielders inside the 30 yard circle has also made it quite challenging."
He was all praise for Ishant Sharma, who has been pretty impressive in this series.
"Ishant bowled really well and in right channel. One needs to understand that he is playing ODI after quite some-time."
The skipper is also impressed with the effort of young new ball bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shami Ahmed, but is certainly in no mood to throw the youngsters into Test cricket right now. "50 over format will give them more exposure and will test their bowling skills both as new-ball bowlers as well as in death-overs. Test cricket is entirely different and if you look at someone like Bhuvneshwar, he can be effective in specific conditions. To play him in Tests, you need to have a look at the conditions. Like if we are playing in England, New Zealand or South Africa where the ball swings and seams, he can be considered but on sub-continental tracks he would need to alter the length which he bowls," Dhoni explained.
"As far as Shami is concerned, he is someone who can bowl quick enough to surprise the batsmen and can reverse the ball both ways but he also needs to improve."
Ravindra Jadeja finally came good, putting up consistent performance in the series and the skipper feels that it augurs well for Indian cricket.
"Jadeja doing well gives us more options. His performance is crucial for the team as we have been struggling from past few years to get a bowling all-rounders as we only have Irfan Pathan," Dhoni said.
"Jadeja has shown a lot of improvement in his all-round performance especially batting. But one must understand that coming at No 7, he won't get us too many runs. But if Jadeja and Irfan are both available, then we have can try out different combinations," he added.
Asked about the blue-print of 2015 World Cup, Dhoni said that, "It's still a long-way to go and you never know what comes up. If today you are saying that experiment of opening with Rohit worked out really well, had we lost the series, it would have been termed as one of the reasons for our defeat," he said.
On today's fifth and final ODI which India lost by seven wickets today, Dhoni did admit that toss became a crucial factor. "It was a bad toss to lose. Initially, in places like Dharamsala or Guwahati where you have an early start, the ball does reverse initially. But this is a good exposure for the younger batsman about how to play when the ball is seaming and swinging. The wicket eased out during the second half and it became easier for batting which was very much expected when sun comes out," he said.
By Indian Sports News Network