India Twenty20 Cricket team captain Dhoni

by satish
September 11th, 2007

We have lot of options: Dhoni

India’s twenty20 team captain M.S.Dhoni passed his first as captain in dealing impressively with the media. “It is an entertaining format and we have a lot of youngsters in the squad,” he said on the eve of the inaugural ICC World Twenty20. Dhoni refused give captaincy more than the importance it deserved. “It (captaincy) is not about one person. the entire team has to respond. Good captains are made by the team,” he said.

On the team’s chances, he said, “I think 12 of them can bowl and bat. We will see the wicket and then decide, but we have lots of options, and if you have options there is a good chance of the team doing well. We just have to be open-minded and take split-second decisions,” he said. The format demands a lot from the fielder in every cricketer, and a repeat of the Indian team’s fielding disasters in England, could prove fatal here. You will see we have a lot of youngsters. We dropped a few catches (in England) but our fielding wasn’t that bad,. We pushed the England batsmen when they were taking singles and twos as well.

“Of course England were better in the circle. But our youngsters have come through different camps, so you will definitely see a better fielding performance from this side.” The captain also refused to put added pressure on Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan. “You cannot judge a batsman or a bowler based on this format,” he said.

Dhoni had some encouraging words for the bowlers, a much maligned lot by the format. “I don’t think it’s a total batsman’s game – the new Kooaburra ball does a bit, the batsman doesn’t have time to settle, which gives the bowlers a chance to take wickets. The bowlers need to bowl in the right areas, and try and guess what the batsman is planning to do,” he added. Most importantly, the 26 year-old stressed on the need for the players to enjoy themselves.

“The problem is that our players are too much into the game to enjoy it. I want my boys to enjoy the game,” he said.