Indian seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar helped team India to register a memorable victory over Sri Lanka in the second ODI in Pallekele. He said that former skipper MS Dhoni’s crucial inputs helped him to build up his knock like Test cricket helped him to battle it out in the middle.

Bhuvneshwar and Dhoni stitched an unbeaten 100-run stand, talking about the same during the post-match press conference, Bhuvi said, “When I went in to bat, MS told me to play my natural game like I play in Test cricket and don’t take any pressure as we had a lot of overs at that time. We knew if we played them out we would chase easily.”

He further elaborated, “I knew there is nothing to lose in this situation as we were already seven down. I was just thinking that I can play and that I have to support MS as much as I can. There was no message as such from the dressing room or MS Dhoni. The only thing was they wanted me to play as long as possible. I also wanted to do the same thing because that was the only chance to win if I could play all those 47 overs. That was my plan.”

When asked about how he countered the on fire Dananjaya, Bhuvi replied, “I just wanted to play him for the wrong one or the googlies, which he was bringing in to me. And whatever was going away from me I wasn’t really worried about that. Whatever wickets he took that was on the googly, the incoming delivery, so my plan was to counter his incoming deliveries. Initially it was a bit difficult to read him from the hand but later on, when I played him for 10-15 balls I could read his variations.”

Talking about his feelings after registering an emphatic win for India with the bat, Kumar said that he never dreamed about scoring a match winning fifty in ODIs as the format doesn’t suit his style of batting.