India's World Cup 2019 defeat against England was brought to discussion again after all-rounder Ben Stokes' comments in his book. Stokes had questioned MS Dhoni's intent in the final overs and felt he didn't put enough effort to get India over the line.
As per Stokes, Dhoni was more into singles and doubles than boundaries which were highly required at that moment with asking rate going high.
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But Stokes' views were not welcomed by former West Indies cricketer-turned-cricket expert Michael Holding. He shared his opinion on his Youtube Channel and said whatever the English cricketer wrote in his book isn't true.
“Well, people will write anything in books these days, because people are a lot more free with their opinions and when they are writing books, they need to be making headlines at times. But, to be honest, a lot of people watching that game perhaps wouldn’t have arrived to the same conclusion that Ben Stokes arrived at that India were not trying to win,” he said.
Holding feels Dhoni was certainly going for the win and his face said it all during the chase. Earlier, Sikander Bakht, a former Pakistan cricketer had accused Team India of losing the match purposely to keep Pakistan out of the contention for semifinals.
”It wasn’t the game that India had to win, but I don’t think anyone can say that was a team tactic to lose the game. I watched that game and it appeared to me as if India weren’t putting up their 100%, but I realized it wasn’t the case when the expression on MS Dhoni’s face told me that he desperately wanted to win, so I don’t think it was a team decision to not try to win.
“But I don’t think they played at the same intensity as they do for a do or die game. If they had to win that game, we would’ve seen a big more intensity,” Holding said.
Stokes had also pointed finger at the partnership between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.
“It (On India starting the chase slowly) all depends on the conditions. It’s important not give wickets early in the innings. I don’t think anyone can question that tactic. It’s not the first time that we’ve seen in WC tournaments, where teams have lost games, you wouldn’t say they were fixing the game, but they’ve lost the games because they’ve figured that they have to lose that particular game to knock out some other team from the tournament,” he concluded.
