Dhoni deflects deserved praise

MS Dhoni celebrates as Mike Hussey is cleaned up by Ravindra Jadeja as India romped to a comfortable series-levelling victory at Nagpur

Buy this photo

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni rated his superb century against Australia in the second one-day international at Nagpur as special - but did not think it was his best innings to date.

In a man-of-the-match performance, Dhoni cracked 124 off 107 deliveries and put on 119 for the fourth wicket with Gautam Gambhir - who himself scored 76 - as India piled on a formidable 354 for seven, their highest ever total against Australia in ODIs.

Australia, in reply, were bowled out for 255 handing India a series-levelling 99-run victory.

Dhoni, who came in with India precariously placed at 97 for three after 15 overs, enjoyed having time to pace his innings.

“It’s a special century because it has come after such a long time,” he said.

“When you bat at number five or six you usually get a 60 or an 80, but you can also get out playing big shots. Today, I had ample time to build my innings and I just exploited a good batting surface.

“Gambhir gave me excellent support and he was unfortunately run out. I don’t think it is the best innings I’ve ever played, but this performance is a good feeling.”

India lost Sachin Tendulkar early, but Virender Sehwag smashed 40 off just 31 deliveries up the order and Dhoni’s fourth-wicket stand with Gambhir came at better than a run a ball, although boundaries were few and far between.

Suresh Raina smacked 62 off 50 deliveries as India easily amassed runs against Australia’s weakened pace attack.

Brett Lee and James Hopes were both ruled out and although Mitchell Johnson – who was a doubtful starter due to an ankle injury - was eventually declared fit, he returned figures of 3-75 from 10 overs.

“We lost Sachin early, but Sehwag and Gambhir gave us the kind of start we needed,” said Dhoni.

“Yuvraj then showed us why I think he is the best in the middle order although he departed trying to play a shot. They set the platform for me and I was able to play my own innings.

“We were already scoring above six an over and Gambhir and I decided we did not need to take risks.

“The wicket was very good, we played the spinners easily and just rotated the strike and maintained the run rate. We always knew with the batting powerplay in hand we could get to about 350.”

Praveen Kumar, here taking the vital wicket of Ricky Ponting, was part of India's bowling unit that Dhoni heaped praise on

Buy this photo

India’s bowlers then made early inroads and Australia never recovered.

Dhoni said: “Ashish (Nehra) has been the pick of the bowlers and he has always done well with the new ball.

“It was good to seen Praveen (Kumar) amongst the wickets with his confidence returning. Ishant (Sharma) too was pretty good and I’m quite happy with the performance of the bowlers.”

Australia captain Ricky Ponting indicated he had banked too heavily on the dew factor when winning the toss.

“It was always going to be a hard run-chase,” Ponting said.

“The wicket was very good and to be honest I thought at the toss it would slide a bit later on. But the dew which we expected didn’t come in tonight.

“I had a look at the wicket this morning and I thought anything around 300 would be good to score.

“I had a chat with the boys before coming out and it was all about being positive and being busy at the crease.

“It was all about playing their natural game and once the dew came in, we should have been two wickets down.

“But we were down three wickets for 45 and it was pretty much game up from that moment on.”

Ponting, however, vowed to bounce back. “We’ve been beaten easily tonight, but its still 1-1 and we start from scratch,” he said.

“We go on to Delhi and hopefully we can perform better there. Every aspect of our game has to get better and I’m sure we can do that.”