Mirpur: India's ploy of going with three spinners and two pacers worked perfectly as they thrashed arch-rivals Pakistan by seven wickets in their World T20 campaign opener today but captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said it would not be the norm and team combination would depend on match conditions.
Dhoni said whether to include an extra spinner or not could be decided after taking into account the dew factor.
“We will have to decide on team combination based on how much dew is there. Today there was a lot of dew even before the start of match. So we included an extra spinner,” Dhoni said after the match.
Dhoni praised leg-spinner Amit Mishra, who was adjudged man of the match, for his performance (2/22).
“I think Amit Mishra bowled 70-75 per cent of what he can bowl. He will get a lot of confidence from his performance and I think he will do even better later,” said Dhoni.
Except for a few dropped catches, Dhoni said his team did a fabulous job against the arch-rivals.
“A few dropped catches, it would have been better if we could have taken them, apart from that it was a fantastic game,” he said.
“Rohit and Dhawan gave us a good start, Kohli and Raina capitalised. It is good to see Raina among the runs, with him around, it gives us the firepower in the middle order.”
Pakistan captain Mohammad Hafeez rued the dropped catches while defending a small total of 130. He also said that his side were 20 runs short.
“The pitch was damp a little, not coming onto the bat, there was extra bounce. But I thought it was 150 plus wicket and we were 20 runs short,” he said.
“We also dropped some catches, we have to take them at this level and in low-scoring matches like this. Unfortunately, we could not do that,” he added.
Hafeez said there were some positives like the batting of Sohaib Maqsood who hit an 11-ball 21.
“We had some positives also, like Maqsood's batting. He has natural talent to hit the ball hard. It's a long way to go in this tournament. We will come harder in the remaining matches.”
