KP's absence will play a part: Dhoni

While ma­in­­taining that he was open to the idea of playing with five bowlers, MS Dhoni put a caveat that an extra bowler doesn’t necessarily guarantee an improved bowling performance, citing the example of the warm-up match against Pakistan who chased down a 180-plus total.

“It may happen in this game (against England) but what is crucial for us is not to forget the Pakistan game,” he said when asked about playing with five specialist bowlers.

“In the warm-up game you know, playing with 12 players meant we had five specialist bowlers and you got to see that performance also; we have to see whether the bowler will come in and make a difference or not. Because in the first warm-up game, it was the seventh batsman that really scored runs, Rohit batted really well for us and scored runs.

You know it is a difficult decision to make but we will see how it goes in the coming games and then we will be in a better position to decide in the next stage whether we need to play with five bowlers or we can manage with four,” he offered.

Dhoni agreed that Kevin Pietersen’s absence will make a difference. “The point is, you are talking about Pietersen the player. He is one of the players who plays well in all the formats, be it Tests, ODIs or Twenty20s. If Pietersen was part of the side then it would have been a slightly more difficult side.”

Dhoni also ruled out him moving up the batting order. “What we need to see is which batsman suits the slot. Somebody like a Suresh Raina can play his shots right at the beginning and there are others like a Virat, who needs to get in and then go after the bowlers. The same is the case with Yuvraj but we have told the team that nobody is allotted a slot and according to the demands of the match, there might be changes,” he remarked.