By IANS
Chandigarh : It was a total team effort, is how new One-Day International (ODI) captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni described India’s narrow win over Australia in the fourth ODI of the Future Cup series here Monday.
“I don’t want to take individual names. Everybody contributed to the win and it was a total team effort,” a visibly happy Dhoni said after winning the tight game by eight runs.
With Monday’s win India reduced Australia’s lead to 2-1 in the seven-match series. In reply to India’s 291 for four wickets, Australia scored 283 for seven wickets in the 50 overs.
Given the performance of senior players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid in the match, Dhoni categorically said that the seniors could not be replaced as yet.
“You cannot replace the seniors. It is all about grooming the new players as well. The seniors are performing well. The new players cannot be straightaway expected to do well against champion sides like Australia and South Africa,” Dhoni said.
Still trailing in the seven-match series, Dhoni said his team would take each game “match by match”. Three more matches are yet to be played between the two sides.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting said India played well and deserved to win.
“It was a tight and tense game. They played well and deserved to win. Pressure was always there on both sides,” Ponting said.
The Australians, who conceded 39 extras including 31 wide balls, paid a heavy price for this and Ponting admitted the indiscipline. “This is fairly unacceptable,” Ponting said.
Ponting agreed that the Australian opening pair of Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden came out with a definite plan to attack the new, hard ball and score fast as the wicket was likely to slow down in the final overs. He added that India scored well – 185 runs in the final 25 overs – to put up a big score on the board for the Australians to chase.
Dhoni was all praise for batsmen and bowlers saying that openers Tendulkar and Ganguly, though slow to start with, gave the Indian side a good start. He said that Murali Kartik, who was recalled from county cricket in England, did brilliantly.
“We had wickets later and could accelerate. We need to play good cricket in the coming days also. The pressure is always there (Sab pressure ka chakkar hai),” Dhoni said.