Dhoni blames rain for spinners' poor performance ? Cricket News ...

Dhoni blames rain for spinners? poor performance ? Cricket News Update

Following the dismal performance of the Indian spinners against Australia, which culminated in a humiliating 9-wicket defeat for the Men in Blue in their first ICC World Twenty20 Super Eights match, skipper MS Dhoni defended his decision to play three specialist spinners, claiming the rain had severely hampered the effectiveness of his spin bowlers against the Aussie batsmen.

Despite initially having been hesitant to use five specialist bowlers which would lead to a depleted batting line-up, Dhoni opted for the risky combination in the team?s final group stage match against England ? a dead rubber, with both teams already having qualified for the Super Eights.

The combination of three specialist bowlers did wonders against the Poms, who were forced to concede a massive 90-run defeat, with the spin duo of Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla proving particularly deadly.

The Men in Blue opted for a similar line-up in their first Super Eights match, played against Australia at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on September 28 ? however, in the damp slippery conditions, the combination backfired, earning the skipper a fair amount of flak.

?We played with five bowlers in the last match,? Dhoni said, pointing out that the combination had won the team the match against England. ?To say that the bowlers didn't bowl well based on this one match would be wrong because we need to take into consideration the conditions ... It rained towards the end of our innings.

?When the ball gets wet there is not much there for the spinners ... there was no real grip for them and that was the main reason we were not able to put pressure on the Australians.?

Dhoni rested veteran batsman Virender Sehwag in order to play Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Piyush Chawla, but the decision proved costly. Not only did the batting order fail to rack up a substantial total, the specialist spinners were unable to claim any wickets, and the trio gave away a collective 66 runs in just 6.5 overs.

Commenting on the batting performance which had preceded the bowling, Dhoni revealed that owing to the early wickets which had put pressure on the team, they had decided a score close to 145 would be sufficient ? however, the team had obviously not banked on the rain, which would later render their bowling attack impotent.

?We had a score of 145-150 in mind but we hadn't thought ... that it would rain like this,? he said.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Dhoni-blames-rain-for-spinners-poor-performance-Cricket-News-Update-a191186

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