India vs Australia | Glenn Maxwell defends MS Dhoni’s tactics of keeping strike with himself
After MS Dhoni’s slow innings came under a lot of criticism, Glenn Maxwell has defended the former Indian skipper’s tactics of keeping the strike with him and said that it was required during that time. Maxwell has also added that Dhoni is a world-class finisher and he knew his job pretty well.
It is very difficult to put MS Dhoni’s Vizag innings to perspective. It was awfully slow in the face of a wonderful exhibition of death bowling but had it not been that, India might well have ended below 100. MS Dhoni’s viewpoint could be the lack of proper batsmen in the other end, which prompted him to play out the deliveries while looking for boundaries from the bad balls. The plan got the thumbs up from Glenn Maxwell, who stated that it was right of Dhoni to try and farm the strike.
"It [farming the strike] was probably fair enough with the way the wicket was - being difficult to score for any batter, let alone a guy who is not known for his power-hitting in Chahal. MS is obviously a world-class finisher and even he was finding it hard to hit the middle of the bat,” Maxwell was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.
"So, I think it was right of him to try and farm the strike. He hit a six in the last over and I think that's the sign - he hit one six and they only got seven of the over. Shows you how difficult it is. If you hold MS to one boundary in the last few overs, it's a pretty big effort," the Victorian added.
Although Rohit Sharma failed to get going in the beginning, India managed to have a good start thanks to KL Rahul's blistering 36-ball 50 and Kohli’s timely 24 runs to help the opener out in a 55-run stand. However, Nathan Coulter-Nile's 3-26 put India on the back foot as the team lost six wickets for 40 runs to ensure India did not get to the score they initially thought they would. Maxwell praised their bowlers for learning from their mistakes after Rahul’s dismissal.
"I think as soon as you give width to any team, they can hurt you. Once we went straight and once the Powerplay was done, we saw Virat come down the pitch trying to create something off Zampa, who's known for his accuracy, known for hitting the stumps a lot. We created (a situation of) India taking a risk rather than us trying something.
"So I think it was just us being patient a bit longer with the ball. And then, KL Rahul's dismissal. We probed away. He hadn't really gotten where he could take the game away from us, and then he tried to go over mid-off and we were able to create that wicket. I suppose India wouldn't have known what was a par score on that wicket and we certainly didn't know either. And only once we batted on it did we realised how difficult it was," Maxwell said.
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