Need a spark of brilliance in batting: Dhoni

Tue, Aug 24 10 05:37 PM

T V Sriram Dambulla (Sri Lanka), Aug 24 (PTI) Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni today defended his woefully out-of-form batsmen, saying he team just needs one individual spark of brilliance for the entire line-up to click in the must-win tri-series match against New Zealand. "You want one batsman to play a big innings in all games, whichever the batsman may be, especially on these kind of wickets. It can be termed as individual brilliance because you have one batsman batting through and the others batting around him," Dhoni said in a pre-match press conference. "It''s more about the mindset because in one-day cricket you''re so used to going after and hitting the bowlers right from the first delivery. It''s not only in the sub-continent, throughout the world you see wickets are a lot flatter now, especially for the one-dayers," he explained. "If you talk about the batting collapses, it''s happened twice in three games. But if it is said that this is the batting strength of our side, I won''t agree with that. One thing we can''t deny is that we have had two batting failures and we have to rectify the problem, get on the wicket and try to score some runs," he added. Dhoni said the key to success on the pitches here is to play steadily for at least 20 overs before cutting loose. "To give respect to the bowlers for the first 10 overs, and the next 40 overs is yours. This is one of those venues where you have to prolong the respect for bowlers by another 10 overs. If you don''t lose too many wickets for 20 overs, then you can really dictate the bowlers and can have your own game plan set after that," he said. The crushing previous defeats to New Zealand (by 200 runs) and Sri Lankan (by eight wickets) have been hard to take, admitted Dhoni but insisted that the team can recover. "As a team, we are disappointed about it. But if you see, all the matches have been one-sided, which suggests if you lose too many wickets early, there is a big batting collapse. We have seen it happen throughout the tournament," he said. "The batsmen are trying to work out their plans as to what needs to be done. They are not getting out to rash shots. They are trying to battle through and there are times when you can''t do that. That''s what happened in the last two games when we had batting collapses. So at the end of the day, when you are in the middle, you just have to find a way as to how you can get the runs because the pressure keeps on mounting," he added. More PTI TVS PM MRM

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