MS Dhoni credits bowlers for victory; praises Indore crowd

MS Dhoni feels the spinners played a crucial role in India’s victory on Wednesday

Indian skipper MS Dhoni praised the performance of his bowlers, especially the spinners after India defeated South Africa by 22 runs in the 2^nd ODI on Wednesday, ESPNCricinfo reports. The win enabled the hosts to equalise the series at 1-1 while also continuing their 100% record at Indore, with the crowd coming in for special praise from Dhoni.

The 34-year-old was awarded the Man of the Match for his knock of 92 from 86 balls that helped India recover from a precarious looking 124/6 to a respectable total of 247 in their 50 overs. The hosts went on to win the match by 22 runs, but Dhoni feels the Indian bowlers deserves more credit for the victory for defending what was a below-par score.

"This is the kind of victory in which the contribution of the bowlers was more than the batsmen if you compare them because some bowlers also contributed in terms of runs. In a score of 247, if the bowlers are contributing a score of around 40, that means a lot. I feel very happy about the fact that the bowlers won us the match," Dhoni said.

"I thought it was a score we can look to defend. But it was not a safe score where you say, 'okay let's go in and if we bowl well we will win the game.' What was important for us was getting the early breakthroughs and that was provided by the spinners,” he added.

Having lost the 3-match T20 series 2-0 as well as being on the wrong side of the result at Kanpur in the ODI series opener, Dhoni expressed immense satisfaction at having finally tasted victory against the Proteas in the ongoing tour.

"It's a very good victory for us, the reason being, if you see the first game we played at Dharamsala, apart from that one over, you can say those four or five minutes we were really into the game but we were not able to win the game," Dhoni said. "The same thing happened in the last game we played as well, Kanpur, where we were in the game but we lost a few wickets and we lost it at the wrong time because of which we were not able to win the game.”

"So a lot of times you play good cricket for maybe 80-90% of the game but it depends whether that 10% bad phase, how bad it was and what was the timing of that particular error that happened, that can had a big impact on the game. I feel this win was very important for us and at the same time its good to see our bowlers defend 250-odd runs on a wicket that was good to bat on."

Dhoni also reserved special praise for the crowd that assembled at Indore on Wednesday as he felt they backed the Indian team completely even when things were not going the way of the host team.

"The people of Indore have supported us a lot, especially when there was a dull phase in the middle when South Africa had a partnership going and we weren't getting wickets. When we got 1-2 wickets, the crowd got vocal. It helps when you are playing at home and have the support of your home crowd. Along with us, they have also supported AB de Villiers - we (fans) share our love freely. If we like somebody, we really get behind them," Dhoni said.