New Delhi: Former Indian fast bowler Chetan Sharma slammed Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for his captaincy in the ICC T20 World Cup and said that Dhoni stop making excuses for India not being able to make it to the semifinals.
“It is such a big tournament and it hurts to see the captain making excuses for India not being able to qualify for the semifinals for the third consecutive time. Dhoni should take the responsibility,” Chetan told the reporters here during the announcement of dates for U-16 Coca Cricket Tournament.
India despite winning the match against South Africa could not qualify for the semifinals because of poor net run-rate. India had to restrict South Africa within 121 or less but Dhoni’s men failed to do so.
Dhoni in the post match presentation ceremony said that the match against Australia cost team the spot and blamed the rain for Indian bowlers’ poor performance in the match. “I don’t know the reason why Dhoni made such comments, maybe he was trying to save his captaincy as the team has not done well in the past three T20 World Cups”, said Sharma.
“I just can’t understand why Dhoni played three fast bowlers. The Australia-Pakistan match showed that the pitch favored spinners and it was a big blunder not to play Harbhajan Singh in the match. His team selection was simply unbelievable,” added Sharma.
Sharma also criticized Dhoni for not picking Virender Sehwag for all the matches, “Sehwag is the most explosive batsmen in the Indian team and he should have played in all the matches. We needed him in the match against Australia. If Sehwag was dropped because of poor form than why wasn’t Zaheer Khan dropped,” Sharma asked.
About the possible rift in the team, he said, “If there is any rift in the team than it should be stopped immediately, if for that we need to drop a few players than we should not hesitate in doing that. Team comes above everything.”
“Our team made mistakes and that is why we are not in the semis, India won two matches in the Super Eights, but so did the other four teams that have qualified. So blaming this on bad luck is not done,” Sharma said.
By Gaurav Jha
By Indian Sports News Network