Perth: Team India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has suggested a complete switch off from cricket to enable the team to prepare for World Cup which starts in 14 days time.
His comments came after India failed to qualify for the Tri series, losing to England in its last league match Friday. India have been winless ever since they embarked on Australia tour in November. They lost the Test 0-3 to Australia.
Speaking to the media after Friday's loss, Dhoni said, “We have been here for more than two months. So we know the conditions pretty well. What is important right now is a break. Completely switch off from cricket. Just do a bit of introspection on what needs to be done.”
He further added, “It's not only me... everybody is looking forward to a break. Lock the kitbag. Keep it somewhere, you don't even want to see it. Completely switch off from cricket.” Team India will assemble on February 6 before the warm-up matches against Australia and Afghanistan on February 8 and 10 respectively.
When asked to clarify about Kohli's batting order, Dhoni said, “Today, Virat was supposed to bat at 3, irrespective of when the wicket fell because with this batting lineup we had a bit of batting down the order. With Binny and Jadeja in the team, the lower order looked strong. You have to ultimately see the whole strength of the squad. I know individuals love to bat at a certain slot. If you don't have people who can float around in the batting order, it becomes very difficult. I know a lot of teams are not very flexible. They want their respective players to bat at a certain slot but cricket I feel has evolved.”
Dhoni also spoke about the concern over Ishant's fitness. He said that physio has expressed hope that Ishant might be fit in four days..
However Dhoni is happy opener Shikhar Dhawan at last is among the runs, “If he had not scored in this game, certainly he would have gone into the break putting a bit more pressure on himself. There was a bit of assistance for the fast bowlers, it was not an easy wicket to bat on initially.”
Talking about the confidence of the team Dhoni said, “I think from the confidence point of view we are quite good. We have been in this situation before and we know exactly how it feels and how to overcome that feeling.”
“Getting into a tournament like the World Cup, it's important that all of them have some kind of games behind them. In the upcoming warm-up games, we will try to give as many players a chance as possible. There were still a lot of positives -the way a few of the bowlers bowled and the way a few batsmen batted. But collectively we haven't done well,” said Dhoni.
