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The defending champions, India, have sent a strong message across the cricketing world with their second successive thumping in the ongoing World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.They entered into the tournament on a disastrous note, having not won a single international match since December 2014, but have inflicted heavy defeats on Pakistan and South Africa and are now on the top of the group table with 4 points from two matches. Here is how MS Dhoni, AB de Villiers, VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Shikhar Dhawan, Harsha Bhogle and Aakash Chopra reacted to the result of the India-South Africa encounter at Melbourne today:
#1 AB de Villiers
"Yeah, it's a big knock for us to get beaten by 130 runs. It's almost embarrassing. You never want to lose by that amount of runs. You always want to be a competitive team. Feel like you're always in the game, feel like you've got a chance to win games. We're going to have to lick our wounds for a while."
“I just want to sort of go feel sad in my room for a while, and we'll see again how I feel tomorrow. Today's performance can creep into your game if you start thinking about it too much. If you allow it to creep in, it will knock your confidence down. I want to have a mature chat and honest chat about it. When it comes down to making the quarterfinals, I still believe that if we play some good cricket, we'll make that."
De Villiers doesn’t think that the massive crowd support that India had at the stadium had a role to play in the result. He added: "As Hashim (Amla) said to me, India batted well. And we need to win games anywhere in the world if we want to be the best cricket team in the world.
“He actually mentioned to me that he was quite impressed with the bowling performance from India. I thought they were quite clever tonight, but definitely a poor batting performance. Like I mentioned before, the two run outs (his and David Miller) cost us quite a lot tonight.”
#2 MS Dhoni
"I think more than just the result, it was how we played. Back to back performances by both the bowling and batting units. South Africa are a very good side, so it was one more complete performance.”
"What's happening really well is we are able to execute our plans. I can give fields to the fast bowlers. They are not bowling loose balls. They bowled tight lines and the batsmen had to play big shots to get runs. The amount of effort the fast bowlers are putting in the nets is beginning to show now.
"The bowlers bowled in good areas, and even (Ravindra) Jadeja bowled very well, not just quick and flat the way he usually bowls."
Mohit Sharma and Umesh Yadav produced two crucial run outs with powerful throws from the deep, of AB de Villiers and David Miller respectively. Praising their efforts, Dhoni said: "I am very pleased with the run-outs. We usually see the oppositions taking on our fast bowlers in the deep. Mohit (Sharma) and Umesh (Yadav) are quite fast and have good arms."
#3 VVS Laxman
#4 Anil Kumble and Sachin Tendulkar
#5 Shikhar Dhawan
Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, Shikhar Dhawan said: “It was very important. I will say that of course when a batsman scores a century it's a great feeling. More than that, it was important that the partnerships have been going big for my team. That was our plan and that's what we stick to. We lost an early wicket, AB hit a great run-out. We just wanted to stay on the wicket; we knew their three bowlers were very good. I respected the good balls. I was cashing on that loose deliveries.
“I was just relaxed and I wasn't hurrying. I knew that once I am set, I can bring the run-rate up again. I guess after the 25th over, whenever I was getting loose deliveries, once you are set, you will hit more shots, so that's what I did, playing on the merit and I knew that I would get the boundaries easily. They (Kohli and Rahane) batted beautifully. Virat at the start when we were under pressure and we both gave the stability and a good base.
“And then Ajinkya came in and started off on a good note. His strike-rate was quite up, so I was just relaxing at that moment. I knew I just had to rotate the strike and it went really good. For sure, two wins and especially this tournament, we got one-week break after each match, it's a good thing. We are looking forward to the next game in the next week. Thanks to the crowd, they supported us greatly.”
#6 Aakash Chopra and Harsha Bhogle
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