JOIN USMS Dhoni hailed his pace bowlers who bowled fast, swung the ball and sent down some well-directed bouncers to leave South Africa in all sorts of trouble here on Sunday.
Chasing India’s 307/7, South Africa crumbled to 177 all out in 40.2 overs.
India needed to make early inroads to put pressure on the batsmen and they did exactly that by dismissing both the South African openers early in the innings. “In the recent times, definitely it was a fantastic performance,” said Dhoni when asked if this was best show by Indian pacemen in first 10 overs. “Maybe the wicket also helped us a bit, but still hitting the right areas, the length, according to the wicket, how the wicket is behaving, is crucial, and I felt that was the main aspect where we were really good. They quickly assessed what was the right length to bowl, and they didn't give too much room.
“When it was swinging, they made sure they bowled tight length and at the same time when it stopped swinging, still they were bowling close. They never gave any extra width to the batsmen, and most of their batsmen, if you see, they love that extra width right from the top order. They just love to have that width and they score quite freely. It was important that we don't give them that width,” he analysed.
The Indian skipper was overwhelmed by the support the team received on the day with over 80,000 watching the match. “The attendance was close to 86,000 or 87,000,” he began. “Let's give the benefit of the doubt and 20,000 to the South African fans, but to get like over 50,000 people in Australia, I think it just adds to the atmosphere that gets created. It starts from the warm-up, and after the National Anthem, it just multiplies. It's always good to play in front of good support. The kind of support we are talking about, even when we are playing in India -- some of the stadiums which don't have that kind of capacity and so even when they are full they're close to 40,000. So today we were seeing in Australia more than 60,000 people supporting us. Definitely we need to give a lot of credit to them, so I think it's really heartening to see people coming from all over. It feels good to play in front of big crowds,” he remarked.