Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar has criticised MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav for the lack of intent in their match against Afghanistan.
Both Dhoni and Jadhav played a slow knock which and scored just 57 runs in 14 overs from 30 to 44. Dhoni was real slow in his approach and made only 28 runs in 52 balls at a strike rate of 53.84, the slowest by any batsman who played more than 10 balls in the innings.
Speaking to India Today after the game, Tendulkar said, “MS Dhoni is a senior player and should show positive intent. Afghanistan’s bowling is good but you can’t score only 119 runs in 34 overs. He did not show any positive intent against Afghanistan.”
Indian innings finished at 224 for 8, and Afghanistan then got to within two shots of pulling off the shock of the World Cup before Shami took a hat-trick.
“There were more than 2-3 dot balls. After Virat got out in the 38th over and till the 45th over we hadn’t scored many runs. There were not enough outings for the middle order batsmen till now and that put pressure on them. But the intent could have been much better by the middle order batsmen,” said Tendulkar.
Tendulkar played 6 World Cups for India in which he scored 2278 runs at an average of 56.95 and with a strike rate of 88.98. He holds the record of most runs (2278), centuries (6), half-centuries (15), boundaries (268) man of the match awards (9) in World Cup tournament.
