Dhoni suffers injury, Parthiv called as back-up for Asia Cup opener
dhaka — Mahendra Singh Dhoni today suffered a muscle spasm prompting the BCCI to include Parthiv Patel as a back-up for the limited overs skipper just two days ahead of India’s Asia Cup T20 opener against hosts Bangladesh here.
The 34-year-old Dhoni suffered the condition during the team’s training session here.
“India ODI and T20I captain MS Dhoni has suffered a muscle spasm in the back during a training session today in Dhaka,” BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said in a statement.
“The All-India Senior Selection Committee has named Parthiv Patel as the back-up wicketkeeper for the upcoming Asia Cup, 2016. He will join the team in Dhaka at the earliest.”
Medium Pacer Jasprit Bumrah did not train on the first day.
“Parthiv has been summoned as precautionary measure,” team’s media manager Nishant Arora said.
As far as Bumrah is concerned, he is “little under the weather and advised rest today”.
The 30-year-old left-handed wicketkeeper-batsman, Patel plays for Gujarat in the domestic circuit, and has had a good season at home, hitting a century each in Vijay Hazare and Deodhar Trophy tournaments.
Patel, who last played for India in an ODI against Sri Lanka in the triseries at Brisbane, Australia in 2012, had recently expressed a desire to return to the national team, saying he’s always motivated to play for India.
Team India has already got into the groove with T20 series wins over Australia (3-0) and Sri Lanka (2-1) and Dhoni expressed satisfaction with the preparation and said they’ve the right ingredients to do well in the Asia Cup.
“The good thing is we played three games in Australia, yes the conditions were very different in Australia, then we played in Sri Lanka. It gave us the time to settle into the format. You’ve to take the price tag away from the wicket. It’s always easier to switch from T20 to Test format than from Test to T20. It’s good for us that we are getting these number of games. We can try a few things since it’s the same format,” the Indian skipper said.
He said they would look to give everyone a chance in the Asia Cup.
“We will try to give everybody a game. It’s something that is as important as to play as a settled team. It’s important to give everyone a game under their belt but we will look to win the games and that’s our top priority,” Dhoni said.
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