Short-pitched bowling is not a worry, says skipper MS Dhoni recalling historic wins at Perth, Durban and Barbados
Short-pitched bowling is not a worry, says skipperu00a0MS Dhoni recalling historic wins at Perth, Durban and Barbados
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India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni indicated that there was not enough time to acclimatise for the England tour since a good number of members arrived in England from the West Indies where India won 1-0.
"For some of us, it is a seven-match series. We've come from the West Indies and there has not really been a gap," said Dhoni after his side's 319-run loss to England here at Trent Bridge. He continued: "The next 10 days will be important. The preparation will be important to see that we are fresh for the last two Tests both physically and mentally. We are confident with the talent we have in the team. What we are looking to do is make this series interesting."
Yesterday's result means England cannot lose the series. They won the opening Test at Lord's by a massive margin of 196 runs.
On the view that his team did not play like the best team on the Test charts, Dhoni stressed: "I'd agree with that to some extent, but there were quite a few things bothering us. We were missing key players, this is a tough place to play cricket in.
"I'm happy with theway the bowlers have taken up the responsibility, but we have to score more runs. Even in the last series against the West Indies we didn't make par-plus scores."
India were without the services of pacer Zaheer Khan and opening batman Gautam Gambhir for this Test.
When it came to talking about some of his batsmen's inability to deal with the short ball, Dhoni, who has not lost a Test series as captain, said: "You shouldn't forget we have won at Perth, Durban, and Barbados too.
There will be occasions when individuals will get caught out, but it's not really a concern."
Fitness updates on the duo are awaited.
Winning captain Andrew Strauss said: "We are just going to focus on winning the next Test, the rest of that stuff will look after itself. This was an outstanding performance where we had to dig deep a couple of times, get ourselves on top and make it count."
Strauss praised the sporting spirit of Dhoni for allowing Ian Bell to bat again after he was adjudged run out on the third day, heading for tea when the ball was still in play.
"It was a very commendable decision," said Strauss.
"It was the right thing for cricket. As captain it is a very difficult decision to take and I think Mahendra has set a great example for me and other Test captains."
Brief scores
England: 221 & 544 (Bell 159, Bresnan 90, Prior 73, Morgan 70; Praveen Kumar 4-124). India: 288 & 158 all out in 47.4 overs (Tendulkar 56, Harbhajan 46; Bresnan 5-48, Anderson 3-51)
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