Cricket

Dhoni hails victory without Sachin, Sehwag

Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is happy with the fact that he led the side to a historic ODI series win in Sri Lanka in the absence of star players Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag.

Talking to reporters after the team returned from a successful ODI series, Dhoni said the team did miss a few players but the youngsters responded well to fill in the vacuum.

“It is not about depending or not depending (on a few players). Of course it is an achievement but you can not just sit back on it and say we won the Twenty20 (World Cup), the tri-series in Australia or now here in Sri Lanka. You have to continue doing it.”

“If you have players like Sachin and Sehwag, it really helps in doing and achieving these things consistently. But it (their absence) is not really in control, because at times you will have injuries.”

“We didn’t have Ishant (Sharma), we didn’t have Sachin and Veeru (Sehwag) who was in prime form. But it is upto other individuals to take up the responsibility, because there is no point in sitting and sulking about guys who are not there. They are the guys who are part of the 16 who can really make a difference and they were doing just that. But of course you miss individuals, specially the great players.”

“In the middle, it is very important to rotate strike and we have been able to do that. We have got the partnership. We have played the spinners well. We negotiated (Muttiah) Murali(tharan) well. I think we played him really well. It has been tough over the yearsto play Murali in Sri Lanka. I think we tackled (Ajantha) Mendis quite well too.”

“Overall, I was quite impressed by the way we performed from the 20th till the40th over. Of course in some games we lost wickets and you arereally not in a position to do anything, but that is part and parcel (of the game),” the man of the series added.

Tags: Idea Cup 2008, India, MS Dhoni, ODI series, sri lanka