‘Dhoni can shut out all the noise’
There are few people who know Mahendra Singh Dhoni the T20 cricketer now with Rising Pune Supergiant better than Stephen Fleming.
The former New Zealand captain has seen him first-hand for almost the entire length of the IPL. The two had established a successful team at the Chennai Super Kings as captain and coach, before being signed together by Rising Pune Supergiant.
The two though have yet to replicate the same success for Pune Supergiant as they did with CSK. Going by the lofty standards he set in the IPL, MS Dhoni has had limited success in his new franchise and Fleming admitted the big man felt it going into Saturday’s game against defending champions Hyderabad Sunrisers at Pune.
MS Dhoni though silenced some of his detractors with a match-winning, unbeaten 61 off 34 balls, the man renowned for his finishing skills sealing victory with a last-ball boundary.
ANXIOUS
“Yes,” nodded Fleming to a question whether Dhoni was getting a bit anxious that he was not getting the big runs before the Sunrisers game. “He was determined. He has been training a lot. He has certainly hit a lot of balls and it was all building up to an innings of substance. He desperately wants us to do well this year. After last year, we all felt we needed more contribution from everybody. He in particular was the one to put his hand up. So, he has wanted to win a game. Steve Smith as well has been wanting to win a game and our big players want to contribute and one of our biggest did that yesterday, which was great,” said Fleming on the eve of the game against Mumba Indians at the Wankhede Sta dium.
EXPECTATIONS
With his stock rising in interna tional cricket with each year since he led India to the ICC World T20 Cup in 2007, the leve of expectations has also increased on Dhoni. Hence when he was not getting the runs this year after being replaced by Smith as captain o the Supergiant team, questions about his form had increased.
Fleming said Dhoni has a way of staying unaffected by outside noise. “He has never listened or been affected by all the off-field talk. In some ways he isolates himself away from that, which is a good thing, especially in India with the pressure and the amount of talk there is. But still the calmness he shows in such situations is one of his greates assets. And yesterday (Satur day), it was to the fore.
“We thought that it was prob ably late and we had not go too much of the total to leave us with a good chase in the end, bu he proved it with the hitting and batting skills and the power tha players have these days tha no score is impossible,” said
Stephen Fleming.