Dhoni’s rationale on standing back to Jadeja

July 22, 2014 11:04 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 05:33 pm IST - LONDON

M.S. Dhoni raised a few eyebrows at Lord’s during the second Test, especially when he stood a few yards behind while left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja was bowling on the penultimate and final days.

On air, Shane Warne was constantly deriding the Indian skipper, saying: It is funky, why would he do that?

Dhoni explained on Monday: “What I wanted to have was a fielder there. But according to the rules, you can’t have three fielders there. I wanted Virat (Kohli) to stand slightly wide of where he was standing because anything like a faint edge on the leg-side would go between me and him. So the plan was to stand behind and cover that. But if the batsmen kept stepping out, I had to go in. They didn’t really step out so I had the liberty of standing back and trying to catch the ball at both ends but nothing really came to us,” Dhoni said.

Taking a dig at the commentators, he added: “The good thing was they didn’t really step out and miss one because that would have been a perfect thing for the commentators to talk like that’s why you shouldn’t stand behind and all that. The game has really changed as it is more about what suits at that point of time.”

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.