Dhoni is putting pressure on the other batsmen, opines Gautam Gambhir

Indian discarded cricketer Gautam Gambhir had some harsh words for his national teammate MS Dhoni, which came after his slow knocks in the Lord’s and Leeds. Dhoni had failed to convert his slow starts into something big, an art which he had mastered for a long time in his career.

Gambhir said that Dhoni is taking too much time and is putting a lot of pressure on other batsmen. He also blamed his batting for India’s poor performance in the ODI series apart from the incredible spin bowling from Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali. He also noted that if a batsman is taking so much time to settle in, they have to make up for it.

“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.

Those wickets put Dhoni under pressure: Zaheer

Zaheer Khan too was a part of the discussion and the former Indian fast bowler reckoned that Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina‘s dismissals didn’t help Dhoni’s approach. Although he started off positively, he had to slow down his game to ensure no more wickets fell.

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.