Video | MS Dhoni gets booed by the crowd for refusing to run against England

Virat Kohli & Co.made their way to a convincing victory in the first ODI against the England cricket team to lead the three-match series 1-0. But the hosts’ were not looking to go down without a fight as they put up an impressive performance in the second match as Joe Root scored 113 from 116 balls to take the home team to a total of 322/7.

India lost Rohit Sharma, who scored a century in the first ODI, early on and the wicket of opening partner Shikhar Dhawan followed soon after. With KL Rahul sent back to the pavilion after just two deliveries and Kohli being dismissed by a stunning delivery from Moeen Ali, India looked in trouble as they headed towards defeat.

MS Dhoni came in with a view to steady the ship for the visitors but after CSK teammate - Suresh Raina was bowled at 46, there wasn’t much the world cup winning captain could do for India. So he opted to play some basic cricketing shots and keep the strike mostly to himself with an inexperienced Kuldeep Yadav at the other end. However, Dhoni faced severe criticism and was booed by the crowd at Lord’s for refusing to rotate the strike with Yadav  towards the latter stages of the Indian innings.

However, Kohli defended the experienced veteran in the post-match interview as he said that Dhoni was just making sure the Indians avoided a heavy loss, as the latter walked a single to third man to reach 10,000 ODI runs.

"The idea was to take the innings deep. We don't want to lose by 160 or 170 runs. You want to take it as deep as you can and he has got the experience, but some days it just doesn't come off. People just jump to conclusions, which we as a team don't. We totally believe in him and in the abilities in all the other players.

"This thing comes up again and again when he is not able to play the way he does. It is very unfortunate that people just jump to conclusions very quickly. When he does well people call him best finisher ever. And when things don't go well people pounce on him. We all have bad days in cricket. Today was I think a bad day for everyone, not just for him alone. And just as a batting unit we could not click," Kohli said.