Bangar said that Dhoni has always performed well in matches
India assistant coach Sanjay Bangar defended right-handed batsman MS Dhoni’s slow batting in their previous 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup game against England on June 30. Bangar stated that Dhoni has always done his job exceptionally well for the team.
“Except for one odd innings, he has done the role always. Five out of seven games he has done the job for the team,” said Bangar. “If you see the earlier games, against South Africa he stitched together a partnership of (74) with Rohit (Sharma). After that, what was required of him against Australia, he did that.”
“In Manchester on a difficult track (against West Indies) he got a vital fifty for us. Here also he was striking the ball really well. I’m surprised that this question continues to come up every now and then,” continued Bangar.
This comes after India needed 71 runs in the last five overs with Dhoni and batsman Kedar Jadhav at the crease. Yet the pair scrambled for singles and failed to find the boundary regularly. At the end, Dhoni and Jadhav only added 39 runs to finish India at 306/5.
Bangar added that India lost to England because of their excellent bowling and not because of Dhoni.
“If you look at the way they bowled towards the end, they used the dimensions really well and created difficult angles for our batters to hit,” said Bangar.
“In those large boundaries and with the type of balls they were bowling—slower bouncers, a lot of into-the-wicket deliveries, slower balls, I just felt maybe last one or two overs, the difference between the runs required and balls left were a bit too much.”
Meanwhile, Bangar stated that batsman and wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant will stay at number four position because of his decent innings in their England match.
“I felt he had decent innings,” said Bangar. “He got 32 and played a couple of good shots, got a partnership going (with Hardik Pandya), so we’re going to persist with him.”
“The team management was feeling the absence of a left-hander since Shikhar (Dhawan) got injured. It was a ploy to use right-left combination in the middle overs to upset the bowling plans. I feel because of that, Adil Rashid could not bowl the number of overs he’d have usually bowled.”
India will play against Bangladesh today at Edgbaston Cricket Ground. The Men in Blue currently have -625 odds to win the match while the Tigers have +460 odds.
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