MS Dhoni’s record: The Kiwi all-rounder was wax lyrical about the Indian wicket-keeper batsman ahead of the last ODI match.
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New Zealand all-rounder James Neesham, who made his ODI comeback after 18 months last month against Sri Lanka, opened up on the Indian batting line-up before the fifth ODI of the ongoing India’s tour of New Zealand at Wellington.
Throwing accolades at the same, Neesham was particularly impressed by how India’s top three comprising of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli have played in the last couple of years. While he was relieved to not find Kohli in the line-up for tomorrow’s match, he spoke against being complacent.
“Their stats speak for themselves. In the last two years, their top-three averages 20-odd more than any other country in the world. They’ve already got a lot of quality at the top. Thankfully, Virat [Kohli] is resting for the rest of the series.
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“Certainly not a case of getting complacent. We will go hard and put the ball in the right areas again like Boulty [Trent Boult] did it in Hamilton. When you play good cricket, everyone his human, people can mistake, hopefully we will run through them again,” Neesham was quoted as saying during the pre-match press conference.
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Talking exclusively about former India captain and current wicket-keeper batsman Mahenda Singh Dhoni, Neesham said that the veteran cricketer’s record speaks for himself and didn’t shy away from saying that Dhoni will be a ‘big focus’ for the hosts.
“Look his [Dhoni] record speaks for himself. He is a fantastic player. There were some noises made from the Indian media on whether he should be in the World Cup squad or not but as I said before his record speaks for himself.
“He’s got that calm demeanour in the middle-order. I think when you are bowling to him you know that you don’t have the game won until you get him out. That will be a big focus for us. Hopefully, we can get through him,” the 28-year cricketer added.
