Dhoni pleased with third straight win

February 28, 2015 10:06 pm | Updated April 02, 2016 07:05 am IST - Perth:

India's captain MS Dhoni left, Virat Kohli center and Shikhar Dhawan stand behind the ICC World Cup Trophy before their Cricket World Cup Pool B match against The United Arab Emiraits in Perth, Australia, on Saturday.

India's captain MS Dhoni left, Virat Kohli center and Shikhar Dhawan stand behind the ICC World Cup Trophy before their Cricket World Cup Pool B match against The United Arab Emiraits in Perth, Australia, on Saturday.

India may not have been strained in its defeat of the UAE, a match that lasted only 50.2 overs, but M.S. Dhoni was pleased that his side had recorded a third straight World Cup win with the minimum of fuss.

“You have to respect the opposition. Let’s not see who we are playing; let’s play the game of cricket. That’s what was told to the team as a unit. When the batsmen are batting, watch the ball and treat it the way it needs to be treated. At the end of the day, every wicket that you take over here will be counted as a World Cup wicket and every run you score will be counted as a World Cup run. That was good enough motivation,” he said.

Despite the lopsided nature of the contest, Dhoni felt Associate nations in general had improved. “It’s a graph. If you see Afghanistan or some of the other teams, you can see a bit of improvement in their game every time they come and play. But we’ll have to give them more opportunities and we have to make sure that the infrastructure in those countries gets better so that more people can come and play cricket. You have to see overall that cricket is developing as a sport rather than looking at it from a commercial point of view,” he said.

Dhoni would not be drawn, however, on the reduction in the number of teams at the next World Cup. “There’s plenty of stuff on my table. We’ll let the ICC decide; they should also do a bit of work, so let them sit in their air-conditioned room and decide whether Associate nations need to play in the World Cup or not,” he smiled.

Dhoni was sympathetic to the plight of the UAE, but did not seem enthusiastic about the prospect of India playing the team in the near future. “We’ll have to formulate a way, but please, not India. India can’t play any more games. I don’t see even a few days off to play any more cricket than what we play. Our calendar is nine and a half months long — because for two and a half months we play IPL and Champions League — and still we match every other Test playing nations for Test and ODI matches played,” he said.

Unable to handle Ashwin

UAE captain Mohammad Tauqir admitted his team had been unable to handle R. Ashwin. “You saw the results yourself. He bowled extremely well. More than his turn, it was the bounce that was creating a problem for us. He was getting some very good bounce. He took four wickets, and he won them the game,” he said.

Tauqir expressed disappointment with his team's inability to last all 50 overs. “We need to do the basics right,” he said.

“We got out in 31.3 overs, which was not good. The batters need to be more responsible and learn from their mistakes and play all 50 overs in the next game. They outplayed us with their bowling, more the spin attack than the fast bowlers.”

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