Mahendra Singh Dhoni defends IPL and Duncan Fletcher – Cricket News Update
The Indian Skipper, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Duncan-Andrew-Gwynne-Fletcher-c54742, and instead held the entire team responsible for the humiliation in the Test series.
India was out played by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c56013 in all departments of the game as the English dominated throughout the series.
The hosts earned a white wash of 4-0 and became the new champions of Test cricket, clinching the crown from the visitors.
Their batting was a cause of concern as they did not perform as per their records and reputation.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/R-Dravid-c2229, was the only batsman who fought well during the entire series and tried to teach the other batsmen how to play against quality fast bowling on the green top wickets.
He opened the innings in crises when team http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 required that and even performed well playing at one down position.
The 38-year-old really became the wall against the hostile English attack by dispatching three centuries in the series and converted all his fifties in to hundreds.
The dependable batsman was the highest century maker from either sides in the four Test series.
Dravid thrashed 461 runs at an excellent average of 76.83 runs, the best of unbeaten 146 runs, with three centuries and became the fourth highest century maker in the history of the game with 35 hundreds.
Dhoni was impressed with the performance of Dravid and appreciated his batting as,
"He loves England, he loves scoring here. He had to bat at different slots, opening and at number three, and that makes it more special. When the team is not performing, the one who is performing feels more pressure because he knows he is expected to do
well. He was truly brilliant."
The Indian Premier League was held responsible by quite a few critics for the poor display of Indian team.
Almost all of the Indian players were involved in the IPL 2011 due to lucrative incentives and they did not prefer to take a rest after the hectic http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 Cricket World Cup 2011, where India emerged as the champions.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/G-Gambhir-c1447 got injured while participating in IPL which was one of the major causes for their batting debacle.
Duncan Fletcher was appointed as their coach after the World Cup and he faced lot of criticism as well.
Dhoni blamed his team, which lacked consistency during the series, rather than IPL and Fletcher. He commented,
"This was not about the IPL. Let's not put everything on the IPL. It can only get better for Fletcher, The only place he can go from here is up. We didn't perform to our potential and he must be feeling bad."
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