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Captain's knock: Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni cuts one on his way to a gritty 76, which helped India post a match-winning total against Sri Lanka in the third ODI in Colombo yesterday. Chasing 238, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 204 to give India a 33-run win. |
In the process, he helped India win the third game of the five-match Idea Cup series at the Premadasa Stadium yesterday. The margin of 33 runs over Sri Lanka may seem a victory by some distance, but Dhoni was always aware of the challenge India faced in winning the game and assuming a 2-1 series lead.
As he has explained before when facing Mendis, as have others as well, how the spinner is a different bowler, a genuine trick artist at times, but to put runs on the board in an accomplished fashion needed careful study.
Whether he read him through the air, or off the pitch, Dhoni did a pretty good job in putting together his best total so far of the series with an 80-ball innings of 76 out of a total of 237-9. It was enough to help India, always under pressure, to put together a competitive total.
"Each batsman has a different method when playing Mendis. Each have their own gameplan on how to handle him," he said.
"He is different to others and needs to be studied a little more to get his measure," Dhoni added after leading India to an important victory with two games remaining in the series.
Dhoni of course did the right thing by winning the toss and batting first, but when he began his innings, Suresh Raina had already batted strong to hammer Mendis out of the attack after only five overs.
In a sense, that was part of taming the bowler who bagged 26 Test wickets and had also shown himself to be a handful in Dambulla.
It needed someone to finish off what Raina, had in a sense, started and this is where Dhoni's leadership and expertise came into focus for not only putting an innings together but also marshalling his bowling resources after the gamble of going in with four frontline bowlers.
While Sri Lanka felt they may be able to dismiss India for under 200, and win the game at a venue where they have an impressive record, it was the Dhoni factor which put an end to those plans.
The way he worked the partnership with Rohit Sharma and then Harbhajan Singh showed that he always had a target in mind.
"It is part of the gameplan and this time it worked," he said.
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Figure trigger
76
Mahendra Singh Dhoni's innings yesterday moved him to sixth position in overall career run-aggregate by a wicketkeeper. In 118 games he has mustered 3721 runs @ 47.70. Adam Gilchrist, Kumar Sangakkara, Andy Flower, Mark Boucher and Alec Stewart are ahead of him.
100
Yuvraj Singh becomes the third Indian player to complete a century of sixes. Yuvraj has now joined former skippers Sourav Ganguly (190 sixes) and Sachin Tendulkar(166) in the club.
