Nagpur, December 18: Expressing concern over the abysmal fielding by the Indians, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has urged his teammates not to drop catches which can easily be taken at international level during the second ODI against Sri Lanka here tomorrow.
The Indian fielders have put up a poor show in the last few international matches and the Indian skipper said it was time for improvement.
”At international level we were fielding well in patches and not dropping catches. You may drop the odd difficult catch but straightforward chances need to be taken. In the last three-four games we have dropped a lot of regulationcatches. Of course it is a botheration,” told media persons here today.
”At the same time it will be solved at some point of time because of the effort that we are putting in. We are hoping we don’t dropcatches in this game,” he added.
Dhoni was satisfied with the way Indian pacers performed in the dying moments of the thrilling first ODI against Sri Lanka in Rajkot which his team won by 3 runs.
”It was one of the best in the past one year. I have always said we had not been very consistent with the death bowling. In the last game, in the last five overs we gave away only 27 runs. It was a very good effort,” the skipper said.
”Nehra bowled five overs in a row. There was a bit of reverse swing going which actually helped us a bit. Overall in the last game the death bowling was fantastic.” As many as 825 runs were scored in the opener one-dayer at the Madhavrao Scindia stadium.
Dhoni backed curators for preparing batting-friendly tracks, saying it was easy to criticise wicket preparation which was not a mean task.
”Wickets are not easy to prepare. You try to get a good wicket and it turns out to be a flat one. The Kanpur Test the wicket was flat but still the game ended one and a half days’ before schedule,” he said.
”In the last four games the wickets have been consistent and batter-friendly. It’s easy to criticise preparation of wickets.”
–Agencies–