India’s 28-year wait for an ODI World Cup came to an end under the captaincy of the charismatic MS Dhoni when the then-skipper finished the final of the 2011 World Cup with an iconic six at jam-packed Wankhede Stadium to write history.
Dhoni led India from the front with his unbeaten knock of 91 runs in the final to help Team India crush Sri Lanka by 6 wickets to win the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. For the famous victory, former Indian spinner Pragyan Ojha gave credit to Dhoni, who nurtured around 30 players for the mega event.
Pragyan Ojha said on FanCode: “I strongly feel that the reason the 2011 World Cup was a success for us was because MS Dhoni was very serious about all the guys who were going to be in the mix, the 25 or 30, needed to play at least 40 games before the World Cup started.”
He added, “You may have scored a lot of runs but if you don’t have the experience of dealing with various situations, you may not feel it during the league matches but the most important games, the knockouts, the semi-finals and the finals …. That is when that experience really helps you.”
On India’s current experiment with the T20I team despite T20 World Cup 2022 being a little more than two months away, the former spinner said: “Jab aapke paas itna bada pool rehte hai, toh uska downside bhi agar aap dekhein, toh jabhi bhi aapko mauka milta hai … it will be limited. Agar aapka pool bada nahin hai, toh shayad aapko 10-12 mil sake hain but when you talk about Indian cricket right now, aapko 10 nahin aapko shayad 5 matches milenge ya shayad 3 kyunki pool itna bada hai.”
Competition has become neck to neck. Players are performing so you have to bring you A game, and if you do not perform and another guy does and some senior play gets back in, then unfortunately you will miss out. That is the truth. These players need to realise that they are playing for India and just grab their chances. Look at what Suryakumar Yadav has done … He’s getting hundreds.”
Ojha concluded, “Deepak Hooda got a hundred. If you are scoring hundreds, in any format and at any level, then people start noticing you. In the Ranji Trophy the level of competition has gone up. People are not talking about who has scored a hundred, but who has scored double-hundreds and triple-hundreds. When the competition goes so high you have to raise your game too and go higher.”
(Fancode inputs)
