PANAJI: Legendary Indian cricketer and World Cup-winning skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni expressed his admiration for a more attacking brand of Test cricket being played recently because of the team’s mindset of not settling for draws.
Speaking at an event, Dhoni said, as quoted by ESPNCricinfo, that cricket has evolved a lot over the years. “You can give cricket any term that you want to, what we have seen is cricket has evolved. The way people are playing cricket is very different. There was a time when, in ODIs, something was considered a safe score, now that score is not safe in T20s too”, said Dhoni.
“You give something a term, it becomes much more interesting because you start talking about it, you start relating to it, but at the end of the day, what is it? It’s a way to play cricket. Some people want to play aggressive cricket, some people want to play authentic cricket. A lot of that depends on the kind of team you have got — whether they can change the way they play that cricket.
“What is important is to realise the strength of your team and according to the strength of the team you decide which is the way you want to play cricket but it takes time. It does not happen that overnight you say, ‘let us start playing like this tomorrow’. You need to give time to individuals because they have played maybe 10-12-15 years of cricket and they have a certain way of playing cricket, so you need to give them that time to change,” he added.
Dhoni recalled that he faced some difficult days during his playing days when the draw result was certain on the final day of a Test match and he still needed to keep wickets and “go through the motions”.
“For me, the most difficult time during a Test match was the fifth day of a match, which is the last, day when you knew that 10 per cent it is going to be a draw. I would still need to keep for nearly 2.5 sessions and that was the most tiring part. You see there is no result happening, you are just going through the motions. Yes, bowlers would like to take wickets, batters will try to score runs, [but] there is no result in the game. You think let’s finish this and go, why do I have to be here. So I love the fact there is change in the way teams are playing Test cricket”, he said.
The legendary cricketer expressed that draws are not good for the game and it is great how Tests have become more result-oriented.
“Imagine telling someone who does not know much cricket we play over five days and we start at 9.30 and 4.30 is the scheduled end of play, we play till 5 [pm] sometimes, and after five days we do not get a result. That is not nice for the game. So I love how there is more results in today’s world. Even if we are playing only four days of cricket and one day gets washed out, still you get a result – that is the beauty of Test cricket and that is how it should stay – you want to get a result after five days and you should not have a draw”, he concluded.
In 90 Tests from 2005-2014, Dhoni scored 4,876 runs at an average of 38.09, with six centuries and 33 fifties. His best score was 224.
All eyes will be on Dhoni as the day for the announcement of Indian Premier League (IPL) retentions comes closer and whether he will play another season for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). (ANI)