“Pakistan need to show their A game if they want to stop our winning run,” says the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. India have already made it to the semis and would be looking to keep their winning run by winning this match by a healthy margin. Dhoni is not in any mood to give consolation win to his Pakistani counterpart in this officially, “dead-rubber”.
Indian skipper was looking happy after doing an indoor practice session because of rainy conditions at Birmingham. He was quoted by Times of India saying, "Once you get closer to the game, the forecasts, they are a bit more realistic. So we'll see how it goes. What also needs to be seen is whether it will be so much rain affected that the team that bats second may end up only batting 20 or 25 overs, and then the team who has batted first has a bit of a disadvantage.”
Dhoni kept playing the mind games to make sure Misbah-ul-Haq will be having a tough time tomorrow against his fire power. Dhoni was quoted by DNA saying, “Pakistan is looking forward to this match and that too as a final which is quite interesting. I think there are two ways to look at it. If their thinking is that they have nothing to lose, let's go out, be expressive on the field, don't bother about the result, then they can be dangerous.”
He added, "But if the thinking is that they have not qualified, this is a game against India is like a final and let's win this game so that we have it as a consolation prize, they'll be in big trouble. So it depends entirely on what Pakistan is thinking."
Indian batting has been quite brilliant so far and would be raring to go against some quality pace attack of Pakistan which has been doing some decent job with the ball. MSD was quoted by The Hindu saying, "We don't need 100-plus opening stands every time we go out to bat. We are a side relying on good starts but don't always need 100-run stands from the openers. We need partnerships in the middle that can keep the runs flowing.”
It’s going to be an electrifying game but Captain Cool is not in any mood to take any kind of pressure before this big game. Dhoni added, "It's surely an important game. All international sides are good and packed with good fast bowlers. Pakistan also has some good spinners in (Saeed) Ajmal and (Mohammed) Hafeez. We will not change our approach.”