“We Are Still Looking for Batsmen at Number 5, 6 & 7,” Says Dhoni

“Jinx batted well at No 3 but Virat couldn’t score, this is something we will have to look at,” Dhoni said.

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni watched from the dressing room as his famed batting line-up once again failed the rest of the team and bungled to an 18-run loss to South Africa in the third ODI in Rajkot.

The team made a few changes to the order with Virat Kohli coming in to bat at number three again and Dhoni following him at number 4. The regular number three from the previous two matches, Ajinkya Rahane, only walked in at four down. When asked about the many changes in the order, Dhoni had this to say to the media at the post match conference.

We are looking for batsmen to play at Nos 5, 6 and 7. Till they play there, we won’t know who is a good bet over there. And we are looking to give chances as well so it’s a tricky one.
– MS Dhoni

Elaborating as to what he meant by tricky, the skipper said that some of the players are not getting runs when their batting orders are reshuffled.

“Jinx (Ajinkya Rahane) batted well at No 3 but Virat couldn’t score, this is something we will have to look at,” Dhoni said.

Dhoni said that the wicket became slower than what they had expected and the dew factor also did not come into play.

I thought 270 was a par score, the wicket kept getting lower and slower and the dew didn’t help us out. It became a bit two-paced and become difficult to play the big shot. I thought our bowlers did well, maybe a bit more dew would have made it difficult. They (SA) batted when the wicket was at its best and they also couldn’t find runs at the death.
– MS Dhoni

Man of the match Morne Morkel said that he tried variations that worked.

Really worked hard this week on mixing it up a bit. I’m a rhythm bowler and need things to click to operate. We had a couple of gameplans and it is important to execute and we did that.
– Morne Morkel

South Africa’s ODI skipper AB de Villiers was happy that Quinton de Kock proved his critics wrong with a century.

It was a very special batting performance. Quinton answered a lot of questions just like what Quinton can do. We struggled between the 37th and 44th over but found our way at the end. To have Miller up front was ‘Out of the Box’ thinking from us. We were looking at 250 as a par, the way we fought back with the ball was special.
– AB de Villiers