IPL experience will help the team in WC T20: MS Dhoni

MS Dhoni

Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni expects that the experience of playing in the Indian Premier League will benefit his side in the upcoming ICC World Twenty20 at Bangladesh. The Indian team departed for Dhaka earlier today to take place in the showpiece tournament which begins on March 21.

“We have got bowlers who have played lot of T20. You may say not internationally but all of them have played quite a few T20 games in India, especially the IPL and the condition being quite similar here, that will really help them. The standard of IPL is high. They play against some of the best players and they have to execute their plans and I think that will really help them,” Dhoni said.

India won the first ever ICC World Twenty20 tournament in 2007 under MS Dhoni, but since then they have failed to even reach the knock-out stages of the tournament.

Not in the greatest of forms and placed in a group that contains the defending champion West Indies, Australia and arch-rivals Pakistan, they face a daunting task of reaching the knock-outs.

Dhoni, who was rested for the recently concluded Asia Cup due to a side strain, said that he is planning to take warm-up games seriously so that he can strike the right balance ahead of the main tournament.

“The group is very tough and for us all the matches will be important. And we will take learning from the last T20 World Cup, where we lost just one match. Every game will have its own importance. Before that we have got warm up matches also. We will try out our combinations and see to that that maximum players get chance so that before the first match we can have our playing XI ready.”

The Indian team will be under too much pressure after the recent failures in the tours to South Africa and New Zealand, where they failed to win a single match. India also had a dismal showing in this year’s Asia Cup, losing to both Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Having already won the ICC World Cup 2011 and ICC Champions Trophy 2013, a win at the World T20 will give India the unique opportunity to be the holders of three ICC titles at the same time.

India face Pakistan in the first match of the tournament on March 21.