Chennai: India skipper MS Dhoni rates the visiting Pakistani side, especially its bowling, highly but feels the side that remains more consistent has better chances to do well in the ODI series, beginning here on Sunday.
“Overall, Pakistan is a very good team. Its combination is such that they have specialist bowlers and have five bowlers for a match. In a way I feel they have complete bowling attack and they have experienced batsmen who can bat well in any conditions. Specialist spinners are also performing well,” Dhoni said at the pre-match press conference.
“When it is compared to Indian team it is a very balanced side with talented players. Overall, which ever the team bats and bowls well for a long period of time will turn out to be well,” Dhoni added.
Sunday will be first ODI match that India will play post Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement and Dhoni said his immense experience will be missed but youngsters will get a chance to showcase their talent.
“If you look at the last one year or so, he has been picking and choosing ODI matches to play. Yes, We are missing him a lot. He has such experience and he always leaves a solid impact on the minds of the youngsters in the dressing room. We all miss that. Also, when we look at important series afresh, youngsters need to get chances and perform well,” he said.
Dhoni also made it clear that he is not a big fan of the new rules in the ODI format.
“I am not very happy with the rules. I feel that lot of changes in ODI has been brought in when lot of people talk about Test cricket and experiments made in T20,” he said.
Asked for comment on the new rule that two bouncers could be bowled in a over, he said,” Once we get fast bowlers like Umesh Yadav we will try to use it. As of now we will keep that in our pocket.”
He said young bowlers such as Parvinder Awana and Bhuvanesh Kumar needed a few more chances before being judged.
“We will have to give them fare amount of chances and see what set of talents that they have got and it will happen once they play few games at international levels.”
Dhoni also paid tribute to former English cricketer Tony Greig, who passed away on Saturday. “We’ll all miss him,” he said. (PTI)