Leeds: Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has sent out a message to his pacers to work on their “death bowling” skills if the ODI world champions were to defend their title Down Under next year.
The Men in Blue suffered a 41-run defeat at the hands of England in the fifth and final one-day international here yesterday but still won the series 3-1 after posting three crushing wins on the trot.
“Death-over bowling is something which I would like to improve because conditions in Australia-New Zealand will be very different. We are not playing too many games in New Zealand but the grounds are not very big there. So we cannot use spinners too much after the 40th over and to some extent it will put extra pressure on fast bowlers to take more responsibility,” Dhoni said.
The Men in Blue have five ODIs at home versus the West Indies and then at least four matches in the tri-series involving Australia and England in January. If there are any major concerns, they have to be addressed soon.
“It is really important for them to use the coming games well. But at the same time in the next five matches versus the West Indies, we will get fair amount of dew so they might find it tough to execute their yorkers or may not find their reverse swing.
“It won't be exactly like what we may face later in Australia-New Zealand,” the skipper said.
Asked about the inconsequential match, which England won riding on Joe Root's second ODI hundred, Dhoni blamed his batsmen for poor strokes.
“Overall the bowling was quite good today. It was a good wicket to bat on and 300 was the par score,” said Dhoni after the game.
“But we gave away quite a few soft wickets in the middle overs. We lost too many wickets and were not in position to chase the runs afterwards. So those loose dismissals really cost us the game.”
Root smashed 113 off 108 balls as England avoided a whitewash after posting 294 for seven.
