Dhoni stays clear of booing controversy

Indian skipper equates the incident with the spat between Jadeja and Anderson

In no mood to be drawn into a controversy at the end of an exhausting tour, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni steered clear of queries on England’s cricketers, especially spinner Moeen Ali, getting booed on home turf during the one-off Twenty20 match here.

India’s tour of England drew to a close on a rather disappointing note with the team losing the Twenty20 match by three runs here. This came after Indians rebounded from the Test series loss to clinch the ODIs with dominating performances.
During Sunday’s match, England cricketers were incessantly booed by a majority of the 24,000-strong crowd, most notably Ali, who had interestingly sought more support from home fans ahead of the match. Birmingham has a sizeable Indian population.

When asked about the booing, England skipper Eoin Morgan laughed it off, saying, “We all got booed.”

However Dhoni equated it with the booing of Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja during the Test series after his infamous altercation with James Anderson.
“Did you ever ask about Jadeja getting booed?,” Dhoni said at the post-match press conference.“ (On) the last day of the tour, I don’t want to start another controversy,” he added.

Talking about the two-month tour as a whole, Dhoni said, “Overall we had many youngsters on this tour. Five Test series can be tough. None of our players had played five Tests in a series before. We did well in the first two matches, but in the last three we couldn’t do well. After that it was important to do well in the ODIs and we did do that.

“In the middle of the tour there were 20-25 days that we didn’t play good cricket. It happens with every side and it is important to learn from what we experienced here.
“We have West Indies and Australia after this, so if we can implement the learning there, I will be satisfied,” the Indian skipper signed off.

Dhoni also took the blame for his side's narrow three-run loss. India were set a target of 181 runs but they could only score 177-5 despite Virat Kohli's first half-century of this England tour."Getting 17 runs off 6 balls is always difficult," said Dhoni after he finished unbeaten on 27.

"I got a boundary off the first ball. There was pressure but there were two more balls I could have hit. It was just one of those days when I couldn't middle it. I got the toe end of the bat on the ball. You have to take the onus and take responsibility as well. Rayudu could also have done it but this is my strength and I took responsibility for it,” said the Indian skipper.