Keep things simple, advises Dhoni

After the Lord’s high, it has all been a downward journey for India in the series, especially for their batsmen. In the last three innings they have put on board 178, 152 and 161 in that order.

Indian skipper MS Dhoni has a rather simple solution for his batsmen of breaking the day’s play into small sessions without looking to make major technical changes.     
 
“If you need to work on your technique, it becomes very difficult to do in the middle of the series. We don’t have an off season and after this series also we don’t have any time off where we can go and work on the technical aspect as straightaway you are going into some other series. So the best thing for the batsmen is to do some minor changes in your batting if needed and be aware of the problem you have to face,” said Dhoni in the pre-match press conference on Thursday.

“So far the batsmen have been working on the technique and it is a matter of time before it starts showing,” he added.

Then the Jharkhand man went on to explain how the batting fragilities could be addressed. “Let’s take one match at a time. But let’s not look at the series because it becomes a long-term goal. We should look at small goals, start of the Test tomorrow, breaking it up into sessions and if you win more sessions than the opposition and if you don’t do badly in the sessions that you have lost you will end up wining the Test match. That is the priority for us,” noted Dhoni.

Dhoni, who has scored 267 runs at 33.37 with three fifties, then detailed how he tackled the conditions in England. “I might be one of the batsmen with a horrible technique when it comes to Test cricket. People often speak about technique, but you also must realise that we are coming from a place where we play 70-80 per cent our cricket and there we develop our cricket.

More than the technique, you should be aware where you shouldn’t be. I have been working on it for quite some time now. The problem I was facing was that what I was doing in the nets, I wasn’t able to take it to the middle.

“I batted well in the last two games. If I can continue to do that in this game I would be happy. For me, it’s not about runs but also about how I bat. It is difficult to change technique all of a sudden. We all have our own technique and we need to have confidence in our technique. Still you need to be aware of the limitations of the technique that you have.”

It may not have been pleasing on the eye. But the ‘Mahi way’ has been successful. Hopefully, other batsmen will follow it, the will to scrap.