Gautam Gambhir questioned MS Dhoni's batting approach after India lost the ODI series against England by 2-1. The innings played by Dhoni at Leeds was slow and he failed to capitalize on the innings he built to add quick runs later.
The veteran cricketer also failed to finish India's innings and was dismissed just when India needed him to take them to a safe total. Eventually, the tail had to do the job and take India to a fighting total.
However, the total never looked safe when India came back to bowl. In the end, it turned out to be an easy chase for the hosts, who won the game by 8 wickets and inside 45 overs, thanks to Joe Root's unbeaten ton and captain Eoin Morgan's 88-run unbeaten innings.
Gambhir, speaking on Dhoni, said his innings has put pressure on other batsmen which resulted in wickets falling consistently. He isn't impressed with the 37-year-old's innings which consisted of many dot balls.
“Dhoni is playing a lot of dot balls and is putting a lot of pressure on other batsmen. He needs to be more pro-active. Apart from (Adil) Rashid and Moeen (Ali’s) good bowling, a lot has to because of MS’s batting (Talking on India’s poor performance). I haven’t seen MS bat like this a couple of years ago.
"This is something he needs to work on. He needs to be more pro-active against spin and clearly, he hasn’t been at his best. Normally, MS Dhoni is someone who takes his time, but he makes up for it. But that has been missing in the last two games. If MS had stayed till the 50th over, India could’ve easily scored over 270 or 280. If you’re taking time, you have to make sure you’re staying till the end,” Gambhir said in the Cricbuzz live show.
The former India skipper Dhoni found support from ex-India pacer Zaheer Khan. He said wickets were falling around Dhoni which didn't help him play like he wanted to. "He walked out today with a positive intent, but what didn’t work in his favor was that Kohli got out soon. Raina too didn’t settle in well and those two wickets put pressure on Dhoni to play a bit more responsibly. Hardik just got going, but he was dismissed for a peach of a delivery,” Zaheer Khan said.
