Yuvraj Singh said that his skipper M.S. Dhoni deserved the ‘Man of the Match’ award more than him here on Saturday night.
“He played well and it was crucial that we had a partnership. The special thing about playing with Dhoni is that he is capable of scoring boundaries when you go slow. Yes I think he deserved the `Man of the Match award,” Yuvraj said.
Yuvraj said that batting on a slow and low wicket was a challenge. “It is perhaps the slowest pitch I have batted on. Dhoni and I wanted to settle down before playing shots off loose deliveries. It helped that we were chasing 230 and not 250 because we had the advantage of taking time to settle down,” Yuvraj said.
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The southpaw said that he was happy to prove his critics wrong. “You guys say that I cannot play spin or on slow tracks and today I proved you wrong. Last match I got a start and I was keen to score runs and help my team win,” Yuvraj said and added that the Indian bowlers have done a good job through this series so far.
Meanwhile Australian captain Ricky Ponting said that Indians deserve credit for the way they batted. “The Indians played batted better than us in much more difficult conditions. The wicket had got worse in the night but the dew didnt help our bowlers. Nathan Hauritz was frustrated as he could not grip the wet ball and we did ask for a ball change but it didn’t happen,” Ponting said.
Ponting said that his team stood a better chance if they had scored 250. “Initially I though 229 was a good score but one day cricket is all about partnerships and Yuvraj and Dhoni took the game away from us. We tried all kinds of tactics, swapped our bowlers around but nothing worked. We lost the game but we did not have a bad game,” Ponting said.
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