Former West Indies fast bowler, Michael Holding has come out in support of MS Dhoni, saying that the latter had every intention of winning the World Cup 2019 match against England. India’s performance in the World Cup match against England last year has once again become a matter of debate as all-rounder Ben Stokes in his book titled ”On Fire” questioned the intent of the Indian batsmen.
Stokes also said that Dhoni didn’t go for a win as he did not go for big shots when India still had a chance to win the match. However, Holding said that nowadays people tend to write anything in their books.
During a chat on his Youtube channel, Holding said, “Well, people will write anything in books these days, because people are a lot freer with their opinions and when they are writing books, they need to be making headlines at times. But, to be honest, a lot of people watching that game perhaps wouldn’t have arrived at the same conclusion that Ben Stokes arrived at that India was not trying to win.”
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Holding did say that it seemed like that India lacked in intensity as they would have had if the match was a do-or-die match.
The Widnes pacer elaborated, “It was not the game that India had to win, but I don’t think anyone can say that was a team tactic to lose the game. I realized it was not the case when the expression on MS Dhoni’s face told me that he desperately wanted to win. But I don’t think they went with the same intensity of wanting to win the game, say if it was a do-or-die situation. If it was, we would have seen a different game.”
On his official YouTube channel, Michael Holding also said that there is no set pattern for chasing targets for any team. In the round-robin stage match against England in Birmingham, India failed to chase down the massive target of 338 and fell short by 31 runs.
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That was the only game that India lost in the premier tournament last year before the semifinal loss against the Kiwis. India’s chasing approach, in particular of wicket-keeper batsman Dhoni, was criticized by many, including the fans at home.
