10 March,2011 06:46 AM IST | | Sai Mohan
While batsmen from Test nations must be licking their lips at the prospect of facing India's bowlers on flat wickets with short boundaries, Mahendra Singh Dhoni was surprisingly pleased with his team's effort against the Netherlands here at Feroz Shah Kotla yesterday.
On paper, the minnows were dismissed for less than 200, but that's not a fair indication of what transpired.
India's bowlers got away with a host of bad balls, the Dutch batsmen were hesitant to attack. "I'm very happy with the effort of the bowlers. Piyush (Chawla) bowled very freely, he had a pretty good game. He has suffered a lot of criticism in recent times, so he's really keen to deliver.u00a0 He must have got some confidence out of this performance," Dhoni said of Chawla's 2-47 effort.
Dhoni defended Harbhajan Singh's continuing drought of wickets. "Most opposition batsmen are happy defending against Bhajji, that's why he's not getting wickets. If batsmen don't attack him, he tends to lay back and take it easy. Maybe, they are going after the part-timers, and giving wickets to bowlers like Yuvraj Singh.
Harbhajan's the sort of character who will be ready for the bigger challenges, will get into his groove when he plays tougher teams," he said.
When asked to react to the fact that both Ireland and the Netherlands made India struggle to chase modest targets, Dhoni said: "It doesn't matter how you win. As long as we win, we are happy. At 99-4, we were obviously under a lot of pressure, but the good thing is that our middle-order has got amongst the runs in the last few games."
Dhoni defended the decision to keep R Ashwin out. "This game was more important for Chawla. He was low on confidence, but Ashwin is a tough character, and can quickly get into the groove," he said.
