
Former Indian captain and star cricketer MS Dhoni recently revealed the reason behind his promoting himself up the order instead of Yuvraj Singh in the 2011 ODI World Cup Final.
Speaking at an event, Dhoni said that he felt like he could take on the Sri Lankan off-spinners bowling the middle overs, due to 2 out of 3 of them (Muralitharan and Suraj Randiv) having played for CSK earlier.
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The former Indian skipper said, “Gautam and Virat had a very good partnership, and Yuvraj was in form. Yuvi was having a very good World Cup. So, the tricky decision was whether Yuvi should go in or, you know, I wanted to… there was something in me; I wanted to go…
…The reason was simple; it was very experience-driven. If you look at the bowling at that time, the bowlers who were going to bowl in the middle overs. Murli sir was there, Suraj Randiv was there, and Dilshan was there in the part-timers, all three of them off-spinners…
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And two of the three off-spinners had played for CSK. So, Murli sir was with CSK, Suraj Randiv was with CSK, which meant that I had batted them a lot in nets. And it is said that it becomes a little easier to play off-spinners for righties”.
He further continued, “Gautam was already there, you know, and Gautam and I have not batted very much together. But we have batted, especially when we went to play India A in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In the one-day tournament in Kenya, I was batting up the order…
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So, we batted a lot together at that time. So, we run very well between the wickets, and it was needed at that point of time. And I felt that the left-right combination and the way I had played Suraj Randiv and Muralitharan, because of that, it will be a little easier if I bat well in the starting 2-4 overs.”
MS Dhoni made a crucial contribution of 91 runs from 79 balls in that match, playing a major part in India winning the World Cup, while also becoming the Player of the Match.