Dhoni plays down 'rift' with Gambhir

 After securing a tie against Sri Lanka, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Tuesday sought to downplay talk of a rift between him and Gautam Gambhir.

Gambhir had said on Sunday that Dhoni should have finished the match against Australia much earlier, and shouldn’t have waited till the last over.

“There is nothing like that because it’s different when you are playing in the middle. If you see his innings today, he also found it difficult to rotate the strike consistently.

“Once you are at that point of time, it is very difficult to play a big shot. I am never in a hurry to finish it in the 47th over or 48th over. Even if it goes to the 49th or 50th over, I am quite happy.

“I don’t have the luxury of batsmen behind me, if I go in more often than not I will like to finish the job. Just that I have a different perspective about it. If you ask Viru pa. he would have said why not finish in 25 overs! Every individual is different and plays differently. You need to take the views of each and everyone. Hopefully, it will work for us,” Dhoni said.

Third umpire role

On the five-over ball 30th over of the Indian innings bowled by Lasith Malinga, Dhoni said, “Duncan told me about it. There was a five-ball over in the past as well. What we have seen is that the third umpire interferes, and you have to come back and bowl that ball. Usually that’s what happens. Nothing much can be done now.”

On him batting in such situations, Dhoni said, “The more you play in these circumstances, the better you get. That’s one of the reasons why someone is batting at No 6 or 7.

“It’s important that they consistently bat at that number because more often than not, what will happen is while you are chasing they will come in to bat, and there will be pressure on them, and if we are batting first more often than not they will get to play the last five to ten overs. It means they will always bat under pressure.”

‘Disappointing’

Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene termed the tie a disappointing result for his team. “It is disappointing. We were in the game for a couple of overs, then we were not in the game for a couple of overs. The last bit, we aren’t finishing games off, and like I said, we are making mistakes. But overall, I thought we came back strongly in this game. 230 was a not good enough total on this surface.

“After making so many mistakes, I should be happy, but at the same time, the way we are making mistakes we need to focus a bit more. We need to be ruthless in finishing games off. That’s what you expect, especially with these two teams – India and Australia,” Jayawardene said.