Good start did the trick for us: Dhoni

Bangalore - Mahendra Singh Dhoni was all smiles at the post-match press conference. After marshalling his team to a 2-0 series triumph against Australia, the Indian captain said: "I am fortunate to have a side that has performed well in the past one and half years. They have done well in difficult circumstances. Someone like Murali Vijay doesn't get many opportunities and in this Test, he made the most of it and broke the century barrier. Cheteshwar Pujara too batted really well," Dhoni said.

The Indian captain, who sprung a surprise by promoting Cheteshwar Pujara to the number three slot, had his reasons for the move.

"If Dravid, Sachin and Raina or Pujara bat at numbers three, four, five and six respectively then there wouldn't be much experience in the lower-order. So we sent Pujara up the order thinking may be the opposition will be taken by surprise," Dhoni said. And Pujara, who became the fifth Indian debutant to score a 50 in the fourth innings of a match, lived up to his captain's expectations.

Dhoni added that the good start provided by Pujara and Vijay eased the chase. "Once we got a good start we knew we would reach the target," Dhoni said while cautioning that his squad needed "more reserves especially in the bowling department."

Poor batting

Meanwhile, Ricky Ponting said that poor batting by his team in the second innings proved costly. "We were one ball away from winning the first Test and that was because of our bowlers. We have lost both the Tests because of our second innings batting," Ponting said.

The Australian captain was harsh on himself while he offered unstinted support for the rest of his team.

"As a number three batsman if you get to 60 or 70, you are supposed to score a big one, Tendulkar made a 200 but if I had made a 200 in the first innings, the result might have been different," Ponting said while adding that Michael Clarke (35 runs in the series) will fire in the Ashes.

On an off-colour Nathan Hauritz, Ponting said: "Nathan has been disappointed with the way he bowled. Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth have done a lot better (in reverse swing) than our bowlers in the series."

The Australian captain also expressed his displeasure at Shane Warne's critical remarks. "Every field Nathan had was according to his request. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that Shane would take his time to ask anyone about it," Ponting said.
Run-a-ball scoring

The Australian captain admitted that Pujara and Vijay helped India whittle down 207 easily. "The Pujara-Vijay partnership did us in, they were scoring at a run-a-ball rate," Ponting said.

Asked about Pujara's promotion to the number three slot, Ponting took a jibe at Rahul Dravid. "I had a look at Dravid's record at Bangalore and it's not great. May be they were trying to be proactive and sent someone who can hit at a faster rate," Ponting said.
Courtesy : The Hindu

Photo : Sunil Gavaskar presents the Border-Gavaskar trophy to MS Dhoni during the presentation ceremony after the second Test between India and Australia in Bangalore. Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

Oct 14,2010