Team India captain Virat Kohli expressed his joy at seeing Mahendra Singh Dhoni play a good innings on Tuesday and take India home at Adelaide as India beat Australia by 6 wickets on Tuesday.
Dhoni and Kohli put on a 82-run stand for the fourth wicket before the latter fell for 104 -- his 39th ODI century and 24th while chasing in one-day cricket.
However, Dhoni didn't stop there. He guided India home with some help from Dinesh Karthik (25* off 14 balls) and remained not out on 55 off 54 balls.
This was Dhoni's second fifty in a row in this series and Kohli is very pleased to see him bat this way.
"That has been his classic way of playing for years and we saw a glimpse of that today (Tuesday) and when you don't play a lot of matches at the international level, it is difficult.
"You come suddenly and can't play at full flow. So I feel as he plays more, he will be in full flow. And when he is in flow, we as a team relax a bit as he can bank on him.
"He has played a special innings in Adelaide and he will also feel special today because he came back to Adelaide and played a finishing knock. So as a team we like it a lot when he performs," Kohli told Yuzvendra Chahal in a video posted by BCCI.tv
Dhoni has been criticised for his slow innings lately and despite his fifty in Sydney, his effort off 96 balls came under the scanner.
But, the knock in Sydney would come as a welcome change and it was appreciated by former India captain Sourav Ganguly as well.
"Two things are to be seen from this innings. When he (Dhoni) was playing with Virat, he played differently and when he was out, he changed his game. When Kohli plays, he takes the pressure off the other player but once he got out, he took the game forward.
"Dhoni played a great inning after a long time. It is a big positive for India that he played like that and this will give him confidence. The team management will also get confidence from this that they were not wrong to back him," Ganguly said on IndiaTV's show Cricket Ki Baat.
Dhoni, who had hit a fifty after 14 innings in Sydney now has two in two and suddenly and his form will at least bring some relief going ahead in the year with the World Cup in less than six months time.
With the win, India will now go to Melbourne as team high on confidence and now look to take the ODI series 2-1 before flying off to New Zealand for the limited-overs series, which starts on January 23.
