Almost a year after England’s maiden ODI World Cup triumph, ace all-rounder Ben Stokes is about to release a book called ‘On Fire’ in which he has analysed each of his team’s games in the showpiece event.
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Revisiting the high-voltage encounter against India, Stokes has admitted being baffled by Virat Kohli and company’s run-chasing strategy.
While Stokes found Kohli (66 off 76 balls) and Rohit Sharma’s (102 off 109 balls) approach “mystifying”, he saw “no intent” from MS Dhoni (42* off 31 balls) during the chase.
It was a game held at Edgbaston, where the Men in Blue were comprehensively beaten by 31 runs as they failed to chase England’s massive score of 337.
“Arguably, the way MS Dhoni played when he came in with 112 runs needed from 11 overs was even stranger. He appeared more intent on singles than sixes. Even with a dozen balls remaining, India could still have won.
“...there was little or no intent from him (Dhoni) or his partner Kedar Jadhav. To me, while victory is still possible you always go for broke,” Stokes wrote in his soon-to-be-published book.
He revealed that the England dressing room felt Dhoni tried to take it deep so that the run-rate remained intact.
“There is a theory in our camp that Dhoni’s way of playing has always been the same. Even if India can’t win the game, he takes it right to the end to try to make sure that India’s run rate stays relatively healthy,” Stokes wrote. “His big thing has always been to give himself a chance of winning by being at the crease for the final over, but he generally likes to stick around to get as close to a target as possible even in a losing cause.”
Earlier, England’s new ball bowlers bowled with utmost discipline and didn’t allow Kohli and Rohit to score freely. The Indian captain and his deputy might have added 138 runs for the second wicket but they consumed nearly 27 overs for it.
“The way Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli played was mystifying. I know that we bowled brilliantly well during this period, but the way they went about their batting just seemed bizarre. They allowed their team to get so far behind the game. They showed no desire to put any pressure back onto our team, content instead to just drift along, a tactic that was clearly playing into our hands.”
With his much-vaunted wrist-spinners, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, conceded 160 runs between them against the mighty English batting line-up, skipper Kohli had brought the small boundary dimensions at Edgbaston under scanner, which Stokes found quite "weird".
“Yet it was weird to hear India captain Kohli whingeing about the size of the boundaries at the post-match presentation ceremony. I have never heard such a bizarre complaint after a match. It’s actually the worst complaint you could ever make.
“Both teams have to bat out there, and get the same number of balls, so how can the playing area’s dimensions be an advantage to one team or the other?,” he further wrote.
(With PTI inputs)
