Gambhir Claims Dhoni Is Putting Pressure on Other Batsmen

Former team India cricketer and currently discarded from the team Gautam Gambhir taunted his national teammate MS Dhoni with some harsh words after the latter’s slow knocks in Lord’s and Leeds.

Cricket news: I have not seen Dhoni batting like this before, says Gambhir

Dhoni had started very slowly in the previous two outing against England and could not make up after that and failed to score something big, an art which he had mastered in the previous years.

Gambhir feels that Dhoni is taking too much time to settle in the middle and this thing is having a negative effect as it is putting pressure on the batsman who is batting on the other end.

He has praised the bowling of Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid along with blaming Dhoni’s batting for India’s poor performance in the series decider game. Gambhir feels that if a batsman takes time to settle in, he must score quickly later to make up for the loss.

“Dhoni is playing a lot of dot balls and is putting a lot of pressure on other batsmen. He needs to be more pro-active. Apart from (Adil) Rashid and Moeen (Ali’s) good bowling, a lot has to because of MS’s batting (Talking on India’s poor performance). I haven’t seen MS bat like this a couple of years ago.

This is something he needs to work on. He needs to be more pro-active against spin and clearly, he hasn’t been at his best. Normally, MS Dhoni is someone who takes his time, but he makes up for it. But that has been missing in the last two games. If MS had stayed till the 50th over, India could’ve easily scored over 270 or 280. If you’re taking time, you have to make sure you’re staying till the end,” Gambhir said in the Cricbuzz live show.

Zaheer Khan, the former Indian pacer, was also present and part of the live show. He felt that Dhoni had started with a positive approach, but the consecutive dismissals of Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina forced him to slow down his game so that no more wickets fall.

“He walked out today with a positive intent, but what didn’t work in his favor was that Kohli got out soon. Raina too didn’t settle in well and those two wickets put pressure on Dhoni to play a bit more responsibly. Hardik just got going, but he was dismissed for a peach of a delivery,” Zaheer Khan said.