Sledging to be subdued: MSD

Captain cool has been feeling the heat generated by his team’s mediocre performance in the home series against England, but the man himself looks composed as ever. As Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men brace up for a big, passion-fuelled series, the Indian skipper is far from being frazzled by the team’s slump.

Dhoni said the short series is a fresh start and that there was no looking back at the last ball loss to England in Mumbai earlier this week. Importance of series: It’s quite an important series. We’re playing a bilateral series after quite some time. As far as sledging and controlling emotions go, both teams will wish that such a thing — that can be a point of debate, doesn’t happen.

But if you’re playing for your country, some bickering/ arguing will keep happening. We’ll try to limit that and hope no major incident happens on the ground. Targets for the team: We don’t go in with a fixed target in mind. Our team’s strategy has always been to get off to a good start. After 5 or 6 overs, we analyze what can be a good target and keep revising the target. Is it advantage Pakistan with their potent pace attack: It’s not about how good you look on paper. It’s always about how the individual reacts to the situations. I think the teams are evenly placed right now. The part-timers also need to contribute. So, overall, it’s a balanced series. Playing a short series: The good thing is we don’t think too much about this. We have games ahead of us now, so no point thinking whether this should have been an ODI series, or a T20 series or a Test series.