India go into today's fourth one-day international against South Africa on the brink of a historic series-win in this country, but skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is concerned about the form of his top-order batting
India go into today's fourth one-day international against South Africa on the brink of a historic series-win in this country, but skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is concerned about the form of his top-order batting.
"Both teams are struggling with inconsistency. Our batting has let us down in this series. We are still in it because of our bowlers. Last game, it took a piece of brilliance from Yusuf Pathan for us to win. We always talk very highly about batting being our strength, but we haven't clicked as a unit. The top-order needs to emulate the lower-middle order for us to win the series," he said.
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We want to feature our best XI and try to win the series. Last few times we played here, the surface was slow and there was turn on offer. But, it can play differently this time. It has been a series of low scores. That will play in the mind of both teams. We can't experiment at this stage."
Dhoni also ruled out the possibility of either Zaheer Khan or Munaf Patel being rested. "Zak hasn't played a lot of ODIs in the last one year. It is important to get him into the right groove before the World Cup. We could rest our senior bowlers in the warm-up games before the main fixtures. Right now, we want to stick to our best team," he said.
"The youngsters in the squad must try to make full use of this experience. When you play in such conditions, a cricketer will get to read games better. When you play in Asia, as a captain, you are always thinking of a minimum of 300. Over here, you can defend 200. This should be treated as a great learning curve for the future," he added.
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