Jasprit Bumrah Defends MS Dhoni After His Refusal To Take Single In First T20I

India pacer Jasprit Bumrah has defended MS Dhoni after the latter refused to take singles in the first T20I against Australia on Sunday. Batting with the tail after India lost a flurry of wickets in the middle overs, Dhoni took the onus on himself to do the bulk of scoring in the final overs. However, he just couldn’t as he struggled to get going as India lost the series-opener by 3 wickets.

Asked to bat first, India were off to poor start as their in-form opener Rohit Sharma could score just five before returning to the pavilion. Comeback man KL Rahul and Virat Kohli then hit a flurry of boundaries to bring the innings on track. However, before the duo could bat India to a solid position, Adam Zampa struck to remove Kohli.

From thereon, the Men in Blue lost wickets at regular intervals which never allowed them to get the impetus. Rahul scored a fifty on his comeback but the likes of Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik and Krunal Pandya failed to play their parts. Dhoni held firm from one end but with no one to support from the other, he just could not score fast and ended up scoring 29 off 35 balls.

But Dhoni’s usual tactics of freeing his arms in the very hand has infuriated many. What made things worse for Dhoni was his decision to not take singles. With Australia winning the game on the very last delivery, those singles could have made a difference in the end.  Dhoni, batting with Umesh Yadav and later Yuzvendra Chahal refused around eight singles, backing himself to take most of the strike.

“We were trying our best. We were figuring out. He was trying to take the game deep and get us to a safe total which we tried. I think we fell short by 15-20 runs but he still gave us a fighting total. We had something we could fight on so that was the plan which he was trying to execute,” Jasprit Bumrah said at the end of the game.

“We almost pulled off this game but on this wicket around 140-145 would have been a very good score because there was no bounce and it was difficult to play big shots. So it’s always tough to chase totals on these wickets,” he added.

Defending a modest 127, India clawed their way back into the game with the help of some fine bowling from Bumrah and others. Umesh Yadav had the chance to win the game for India but he could not defend 14 in the final over.

Bumrah made an impressive comeback to the team after a well-deserved rest. He picked up 3 wickets for just 16 runs while also bowling a superb 19th over where he conceded just two and picked up two wickets. In doing so, he became the second Indian bowler after R Ashwin to 50 T20I wickets.

Bumrah strikes again in his final over.

Handscomb tries to put him off his line and length by charging him but gets a top edge on a short ball and MS Dhoni does the rest.

Australia 113/6. Will #TeamIndia defend the total? #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/aTG9ydIosu

— BCCI (@BCCI) February 24, 2019

His 49th wicket was Australia captain Aaron Finch who was trapped lbw for a golden duck off the first ball of Bumrah’s second over. He returned to bowl the 19th over of Australia’s chase, and with his penultimate delivery had Peter Handscomb top-edge a pull that was taken by Dhoni, running towards short fine leg.

“I’ve been just focussing on what my strengths are,” Jasprit Bumrah said. “The wicket was a little difficult to bat on; it was not easy to go heavily on this wicket because to play big shots on this sluggish wicket was a bit difficult. So I was just figuring out my options, what I should do and I was trying to execute that.”

India and Australia will meet in the final T20I of the series in Bengaluru on February 27.