ICC World T20 MS Dhoni backs Yuvraj Singh to come good in remaining matches.Dhaka, March 24 (IANS/CMC) West Indies captain Darren Sammy said there was no need to press the panic button in the wake of the loss to India in the team's opening match of the World Twenty20 championship.The Caribbean side produced an insipid performance Sunday at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium to plunge to a disappointing seven-wicket loss to India, and stumble in the first hurdle of their title defence, reports CMC.
Chris Gayle struggled to 34 off 33 balls while Lendl Simmons got 27, as West Indies were restricted to 129 for seven off their 20 overs.India then paced their innings nicely to reach their target with two balls to spare, with opener Rohit Sharma (62 not out) and Virat Kohli (54) getting half-centuries."We just didn't respond well enough to their spinners - round one goes to India. I have a strong feeling that we will meet again, so we are looking forward to that. They used the conditions quite well. It's a fact that we just didn't bat well. We didn't bat well and we still got to 130," Sammy said.
"We will take heart from that but we never kicked off in the innings. Simmons played some good blows in the late overs but apart from that we never really got those big overs we required...we didn't get that big moment and we were always behind the eight-ball."He added: "It is no need for us to panic. We have three more first round games to go in the tournament against Bangladesh, Australia and Pakistan and we back ourselves to win all three and reach the semi-finals. We are here to defend our title and we will give our all.""Yuvraj is one of the best players of T20 but yes you can say that he is not in great touch at the moment. It becomes tough when you are dropped from ODIs and then you make a comeback in the T20 squad. So there's bit of pressure on him," Dhoni told reporters."It's easy to say that it is a short format but when an individual comes into the squad, there is bound to be pressure on him," he added.
Yuvraj scored a painstaking 10 off only 19 balls during yesterday's seven-wicket win against West Indies but Dhoni was confident that Yuvraj has the ability to get back in form and win matches for his team."It takes one or two matches. Probably, he will get back into flow as we know how good a match-winner he is. He can turn a game on his own. Today the plan was to have a higher net run-rate but at the same time give Yuvraj a chance to settle his nerves. If he is in flow, Yuvi is a good asset to have," Dhoni added.
About Amit Mishra's splendid form with back-to-back man of the match awards, Dhoni said that his only advice to the Haryana leggie was to back his strengths.Asked what was his tips to Mishra, Dhoni smiled and said, "I told him, Just Play!".On a serious note, he further added: "People bowl or bat according to their strengths. He was feeling a bit of nerves against Pakistan and I went up to him and told him that you are known to turn the ball, flight it and vary the pace."I told him just don't try to bowl the straighter one.
Try to bowl back of length so that batsman can't hit. I told him, biggest strength to flight and deceive batsman.Gayle tried to make up for it in Shami’s next over as he hit him for a six over long on and then punched him through vacant mid-wicket region for a boundary. When Mishra was introduced into the attack, Gayle welcomed him with a six. It was his routine “stand and deliver” six over long on. But the leggie was distinctly unlucky when he varied his length and bowled a fuller delivery next up. Gayle tried the slog sweep and it was one of the easiest of skiers that was dropped by none other than Yuvraj Singh. He made a mess of it by completely misjudging the catch. The batsman was on 19 then. Ashwin meanwhile redeemed himself as he got an out of sorts Smith who couldn’t pick up a carom ball and the return catch was taken by the bowler by covering some distance. Smith could only manage 11 off 29 balls. West Indies completed their 50 in 10.4 overs but Gayle despite the two reprieves wasn’t able to break free. He and Samuels played a few singles trying to get into the groove before a horrible mix-up saw Gayle trudge back towards dug-out. Samuels cut Mishra and went for a non-existent single only to find one of India’s better fielders in Rohit Sharma. Rohit threw the ball to Dhoni who had backed up behind the stumps as Gayle was at the midway through his single. His 33-ball-34 had a boundary and two huge sixes. Mishra then got Samuels out with a flighted delivery as the batsman gave him charge and missed the leg-break. Dhoni completed easiest of stumpings. Dwayne Bravo (0) got a first-ball googly as it spun back sharply to find his pads as West Indies were reduced to 74 for four. Mishra was on a hat-trick which opposition skipper Darren Sammy averted. But West Indies’ chances of getting a big score had ended by then.
