New Delhi: Former India captain MS Dhoni gave mouth-shutting reply to critics with his traditional run-chase for Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter on Saturday. The performance was so influential that Sourav Ganguly, who hasn’t been too impressed with Dhoni’s recent run in the T20 format, didn’t hold himself back from lauding the Jharkhand-born batsman.
“It was a great knock (vs Hyderabad) typical Dhoni and that is why I keep on saying that he needs to bat at No.4, because when he gets to bat at No.4, like you saw that he was 10 off 13 deliveries yesterday but once he got in he just smashed those big sixes,” Ganguly was quoted saying by India Today.
Dada continued to praise Mahi, calling his exceptional run chase ‘terrifc’.
“It was a terrific knock yesterday and hopefully he can continue for the Supergiant because they need him and the next two games will be very important for him. MS Dhoni is an automatic choice for India and he played superbly last night,” he continued.
Dhoni’s batting in the last match was unarguably world class but Ganguly said that his franchise Rising Pune Supergiant would expect the same performance from him on a more consistent basis.
“At one stage we felt as if the game has gone away from the RPS team and their two wins back to back have actually brought them back in contention to qualify. You expect Dhoni to perform but you expect it to happen a lot more often. If you look at the last IPL there was one fifty (from MS Dhoni) for the Pune team and this season as well this is the first big knock he has played six games into the tournament.
“The Rising Pune Supergiant need him, when you have such quality players in the side and you are desperate to qualify and your back is to the walls then you need to perform. Dhoni has done well, he needs to back this up with a couple of big performances because there have been a couple of guys who have been playing well like Tripathi, Steve Smith is playing well, Manoj Tiwary has done well and Dhoni along with Stokes are probably the two guys who have let the Pune team down,” added the former India skipper.
Steve Smith’s RPS take on table-toppers Mumbai Indians today. Having won the reverse fixture, the Supergiant will be looking to halt Mumbai’s 6-match winning run with yet another supershow.
Source: Zee News