Mitchell Santner spills the secret behind his tactics against MS Dhoni

Kiwi spinners have troubled the Indians off-late especially in the T20Is. It was hardly a year and a half back during the T20 World Cup of 2016 when the Kiwi trio of Nathan McCullum, Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner upset the Indian batsmen who were dismissed for 79 while chasing a total of 130 odd runs.

This time around, the image of Santner beating MS Dhoni who had to do a perfect split to stay at the crease did many rounds on social media already. The idea from Santner was to keep things simple and tuck MSD for room.

“Dhoni is a very good player of spin and seam bowling. I guess at the start I try to keep it simple. I try to pull the length up and tuck him up a little bit. Also, I try to read the batsman as much as possible,” stated Mitchell Santner according to Scroll. Further, Santner revealed that he and Sodhi have been taking pointers from the likes of Chahal and Axar Patel.

“Lengths have been the key thing. Ish bowled a superb length, pulled it back and made it hard for the Indian batsmen to hit. I tried to do something pretty similar. Axar (Patel) and Yuzvendra Chahal bowled really well in Delhi. I thought they were unlucky in the last game. We have to change our lengths accordingly. We have to wait and see,” further added the southpaw.

On Series decider at Trivandrum

After the win at Rajkot, the series is set up brilliantly for a cracking finale at the brand new Greenfield Stadium at Thiruvananthapuram. “We like to treat this is like another game. It is better than being two-nil down. We are excited about it,” claimed the 25-year-old from Hamilton.

“India have played very good cricket for a long time now in your conditions. They are tough to beat. We have taken it to the decider in the last two series. Both teams will want to win. They played well in Kanpur under pressure as well (to win the ODI series). We will turn up [on Tuesday] and put up a good performance and try to take the series,” concluded Santner.