India skipper MS Dhoni says the track is as flat as it can be; Yuvraj out with viral fever.
It was raining runs at Rajkot and Nagpur may not be any different. MS Dhoni declared that the pitch at the VCA Stadium here looks as flat as it can be. “No score is safe any more,” the India skipper declared after sweating it out on a pleasant Thursday morning.
Dhoni said scoring runs might not be as easy as it was in Rajkot. “You don’t get to see such (Rajkot pitch) tracks often. Also the boundaries there were really small, around 65 yards,” said Dhoni. The skipper would want to forget the Twenty20 game his side played nine days back. Sri Lanka had won comfortably on that occasion.
However, as far as ODIs are concerned, Jamtha has been a happy hunting ground for Dhoni. In the only ODI played at the venue — against Australia in October this year — the skipper had scored a match-winning 124 to allow his side post a massive total of 354. India went on to win the game by 99 runs. After seeing over 800 runs scored in an ODI, two 200-plus scores in the T20s, Dhoni still is not too worried about the flat tracks.
“Pitches are not made with a fixed formula, it is a tough task. It is easy to criticise the curators. But either way they are criticised — if it helps bowlers or batsmen,” explained the skipper.
Escaping with a three-run win over Sri Lanka on Tuesday, Dhoni was in no mood to rest on his laurels. “After seeing what happened in the last game, it is crucial to update our gameplan at regular intervals. You can’t stick with a third-man and fine-leg, you need to do something different, every little thing counts,” the skipper added.
Dhoni is not too happy with the team’s fielding. “Traditionally we haven’t been a good fielding side, we were fielding well in patches in between, but the rate at which we are dropping catches is a concern,” he confessed.
The big news of the day was Virender Sewhag being declared fit after having a However, middle-order powerhouse Yuvraj Singh was absent at the training. The stylish left-hander, who was nursing a finger injury previously, is now down with a viral flu. Skipper Dhoni refused to confirm whether Yuvi had contracted the H1N1 virus.
But Dhoni had something to cheer as Muttiah Muralitharan and Dilhara Fernando were ruled out of the series. Both were nursing finger injuries. While Murali was carrying one from the third Test in Mumbai, Fernando picked up one while attempting a return catch from Dhoni in the first ODI.
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