Bangalore, February 27: Team India skipper M S Dhoni today ruled out inclusion of left arm medium pacer Ashish Nehra in the team against England in the World Cup Group B tie tomorrow, and said opener Virender Sehwag will play.
Talking to newsmen ahead of tomorrow’s tie, Dhoni said Nehra could bowl only with 80 per cent intensity at the nets today.
” Apart from that everyone is available for selection,” Dhoni said.
Sehwag was at the nets after the injury scare yesterday when he was hit in the left side of the ribs by a delivery from a local bowler. Sehwag was at the crease today for nearly ten minutes to fine tune his strokes.
Dhoni said Sehwag had a most important role to play as an aggressor to give the team a good start and a momentum that the middle order could capitalise. ”At times when we needed him to bat more than 30 overs, he has done that for the side. But if he bats 50 overs I don’t really have a problem with that.” Dhoni said that while Virat Kohli has been in tremendous form as of late and was suited to batting up the order, Yuvraj’s abilities as a left-arm spin bowler gave him the extra edge over the others.
”What we need to see is that once all these three batsmen — Virat, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina, who has also been in good form — start scoring then it’s a fight for the slot that they need to bat on”.
With the team playing under the glare of the huge home crowd, Dhoni admitted that the team would be under pressure, but expressed confidence over the team’s repeat performance.
With regard to the ticketing controversy, Dhoni said he was not in know of things. However, he termed the lathicharge on the cricket fans on February 24 as unfortunate.
——–UNI