Ganguly believes Dhoni should continue batting up the order

MS Dhoni played a captain's innings to lead his side to victory in the second ODI

Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly praised Indian limited-overs captain MS Dhoni's decision to push himself up the batting order. The president of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) hailed the Indian skipper, who has been under fire lately for not being able to finish every game with the same effectiveness as he did in the past.

Ganguly was speaking to the media during a sponsorship event related to CAB. Dhoni had helped a struggling India reach a respectable total in Wednesday's second ODI against South Africa.

“I have been saying for the last four years that Dhoni should bat up the order. He scored runs today because he has given himself time. However good you are, you need time out there in the middle to score big runs,” Ganguly said.

Dhoni scored a responsible innings of 92* to make up for the below-par batting performance by the most of the Indian batsmen. The Indian captain's limited overs record speaks for itself – in 267 matches (233 innings), Dhoni scored 8743 runs at an excellent average of 52.66.

For a batsman who has batted most of his career at Number 6, Dhoni has a much better batting average when he bats up the order. Ganguly believed that batsmen with quality need to bat higher up the order in order to perform to the best of their abilities.

“This is no rocket science, for everyone, be it Manoj (Tiwary), Sourav (Ganguly), (Sachin) Tendulkar, it's all the same. Tendulkar would not have been the player if he would not have opened,” Ganguly suggested.

“As a rule to score a hundred, you got to face 80-90 deliveries, if you face only 20 deliveries batting at No.7, how can you score those runs,” he added.

Ganguly was happy with the amount of time Dhoni spent on the pitch in the second ODI and believed the trend should continue if India has to keep winning games. India were 124-6 at one stage during the match; Dhoni anchored his innings very well in order to get the maximum amount of runs for his team.

Other than Dhoni and Ajinkya Rahane, none of the batsmen fared well. Rohit Sharma fell early after having scored a brilliant 150 in first ODI. Shikhar Dhawan again failed to build on a good start to his innings. Virat Kohli fell cheaply too, having run for a non-existent run. Suresh Raina displayed signs that short balls still trouble him, getting out for a duck.

Ganguly believed that it was just a matter of time before Kohli fought his way back to form. “He will score runs some day. Not every day you can score a century, there will be ups and downs. Kohli is an absolute champion. He's a great player.”