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MS Dhoni exposes why he took the ball from umpire after Bristol ODI

Utkarsh Bhatla
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MS Dhoni takes ball

India have had a time to forget on their tour of England this season. Virat Kohli’s men made a positive start to life in their ODI series picking up a 1-0 lead. However, two horrific performances saw them crumple like a house of cards. In a flash, they were level at 1-1 and lost the series 2-1. Several Indians were left unhappy and angered by the performance of the entire team, but the abuses and hatred were hurled at one man in particular- M.S. Dhoni.

The former India captain endured a tumultuous time in England while he was present for the limited over matches. He did score a few runs but did not match the team’s requirement. In the second ODI at the Lord’s, he would not speed up the innings in spite of the required run rate crossing India’s net run rate. His batting was criticized heavily after the match.

In the third ODI at Bristol, he just scored 42 runs off 66 balls. This led to India losing heavily and Dhoni ending the three match series with a horrible strike rate of 63.20. After the match ended with England emerging victorious, the 37 year old went to the umpire to collect the ball. That sparked heavy debates among India’s faithful who believed that Dhoni was soon announcing his retirement from ODIs, four years on from his final test.

However, the wicket keeper cum batsman has opened up to the incident.

“We actually have to keep working to know what really is happening. That was to see why we are not able to get enough reverse swing because we’ll be playing the World Cup and need to be clear about what is it that we need to do so that we get reverse swing going. It’s something very important and if the opposition is getting it we should also get it at some point or the other so that’s why I took the ball. After 50 overs, the ball is useless to the ICC so I requested the umpire for a ball and then I gave it to the bowling coach and said we need to work on it,” Dhoni was quoted as saying by Wah Cricket.

“We discussed on how we can get it scuffed up so that we can get a bit of reverse swing going that will, in turn, help the fast bowlers get the Yorkers after the 40-over mark that would help us in restricting the opposition by not giving too many runs in the last ten overs,” he concluded

 

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