MOHALI: MS Dhoni+ came out to bat at No. 4, took the opposition on and scored a crucial 80 in a winning cause here on Sunday. But it takes courage for a captain to say that “batting at No. 4 was more of my need than the team’s.” Dhoni said that in as many words.
“It was important for me to express myself, something I wanted to do for a long time. If you are batting at No. 5 and 6, especially when your top order is batting so well, you don’t get a chance to bat how you want to bat. If it keeps on happening for a long time, tendency is you can’t fluently rotate strike and that was what was happening with my batting,” Dhoni said after India’s seven-wicket win over New Zealand.
Dhoni accepted that batting at No. 6 and 7 over a long period of time “hampered” his batting and it was his conscious decision to come in at two-drop.
“When you know you have just one batsman after you, you actually weigh in a lot of things. I have always said process is more important but at that slot it becomes result-oriented. That has actually hampered my batting to a lot of extent. It’s not easy to come out of that. I could have taken a few more innings (at No. 4) but it’s good that I have got runs (sooner),” the skipper said.
“It also gives me the chance to bat with Virat. We run well between the wickets, we can take on even the best of fielders. Overall, I think this batting slot is more of my need than the team’s.”