“You Can’t Score Only 119 Runs in 34 Overs”: When Sachin Tendulkar Criticised MS Dhoni for Not Showing Intent in a World Cup match

The 2019 World Cup was a heartbreaking one for the Indian team, where they lost in the semi-final against New Zealand. Team India won most of their matches convincingly in the tournament, but they had a tough time against Afghanistan. Former India captain MS Dhoni was criticized a lot for his batting in that match.

India batted first, and they had a decent start where then India’s captain Virat Kohli scored a brilliant half-century. After 26 overs, the score was 122-2. However, they managed to score just 224/8 at the end of 50 overs. Dhoni stitched a partnership of 57 runs in 84 balls for the fifth wicket with batter Kedar Jadhav.

Dhoni’s knock of 28 (52) at a strike-rate of 53.84 came under a lot of scrutinies. The wicket-keeper batter was clearly struggling against the Afghanistan spinners. In the end, spinner Rashid Khan took Dhoni’s wicket to end his struggle in the middle.

When Sachin Tendulkar Criticised MS Dhoni for Not Showing Intent

Legendary Indian batter Sachin Tendulkar also lashed out at Dhoni for his lack of intent in the match. He had said that Dhoni should have shown positive intent in the middle being a senior player of the side. Tendulkar also insisted that scoring just 119 runs in the last 34 overs was clearly not acceptable.

Tendulkar pointed at Dhoni’s inability to rotate the strike in the middle overs. It was a rare occasion when Tendulkar got mad at Dhoni as both of them share a mutual respect for each other.

“MS Dhoni is a senior player and should show positive intent. Afghanistan’s bowling is good but you can’t score only 119 runs in 34 overs. He did not show any positive intent against Afghanistan,” Tendulkar had told India Today.

“Dhoni has the ability to hit but his strike rotation was not good. The intent could have been much better by the middle-order batsmen. I believe MS Dhoni needs to up his ante when it comes to strike rotation in the next matches.”

Mohammed Shami’s hat-trick sealed the match for India

Chasing the target of 225 runs, Afghanistan were 106-2 at one stage. However, the Indian bowlers then pulled the match back for the Indian team. In the last over, Afghanistan needed 16 runs, but Indian pacer Mohammed Shami took an excellent hattrick to seal the deal for India.

India won the match by 11 runs in the end. Shami became just the second Indian bowler after Chetan Sharma to take a hat trick in a World Cup match.