Perth: It was a spectacular show by the Indian pace trio against West Indies on the Western Australia Cricket Ground (WACA) ground as the world champions prevailed by four wickets to make the quarter finals of the World Cup on Friday.
Mohammad Shami, who came back from an injury to wreck the West Indies top order with a haul of three for 35 but when Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was asked to comment on Shami, he said that the entire bunch of pacers deserves the praise. “I feel the contribution of all the bowlers are superb. Umesh (Yadav) is bowling well and he is bowling quick. Shami has taken the extra responsibility of bowling with the new ball and it gives Mohit (Sharma) a bit more time in the middle order with a bit more feel, and he has been very consistent. Overall the fast bowling department, the three of them, bowled really well as a unit.”
According to Dhoni, Indian bowlers are now hunting in packs. “What the bowlers are doing really well right now is they are hunting in packs. We are backing one good over followed by another good over. That actually increases the pressure, and finally you get a wicket out of it. In between those good overs, if you give too many runs, what really happens is more often than not the momentum shifts and you don’t get too many wickets at that point of time. So I feel the contribution of all the bowlers is superb.”
Dhoni feels that it has been a learning curve for his bowlers on how to bowl on different wickets. “Overall the learning has been good, and the last few games that we have played, again, in different conditions, the guys, they have stepped up. They have altered their length where according to the condition of the wicket or how the wicket is behaving. Overall it’s looking very complete but we dropped quite a few catches in this game.”
Asked why his fielders dropped so many catches, he said: ““I believe it was slightly tough because of the wind factor. Everybody, almost all 11, you can say to some extent, dropped catches, even the best of fielders, and your average fielders also dropped catches. There must be something really that must be bothering them, and most of them they said it was the wind because of the way the ball was moving around a bit, and also they are finding it slightly difficult to keep their eyes open.”
Even though Dhoni is an admirer of Ravindra Jadeja, the Indian skipper warned that he will have to perform soon. “Jadeja needs to step up really because we have a lot of faith in him, but at the end of the day you can’t really play with hope. What you want is actually performance on the field. He has that capability. You don’t get three triple hundreds in India just because you know how to bat. He’s definitely talented but he needs to keep believing in himself.”
