Many boys were not fully fit: Dhoni

Perth, January 30

India captain MS Dhoni today blamed the injuries and niggles a few of his players have been carrying for the team’s poor show in the tri-series. “To carry the momentum into the World Cup is very crucial but, more importantly, we need all the 15 guys in the squad to be fit. In this tournament not all were fit,” said Dhoni.

Dhoni said it was important that all squad members got some kind of match time under their belt ahead of the World Cup which starts in two weeks’ time. “Getting into a tournament like the World Cup, it’s important that all of them have some kind of games behind them. In the warm-up games too, we will try to give chance to as many players as possible,” Dhoni said after the defeat.

India were laid low by another niggle to Ishant Sharma. The pacer was fit a day before the game, but found his knee sore a few hours before the start of the match. “He bowled in the nets, and after that he had a sore knee. This came to our notice in the evening but it was too late for us to do anything. So we didn’t want to push him because if there is a niggle, it may turn into an injury,” the skipper said.

Shikhar Dhawan failed to convert the start he got but his skipper sounded positive about the Delhi left-hander getting some sort of score after a long barren patch at the top.

“It is important that all your guys are in some decent form. Dhawan will certainly take a lot of positive out of this game because it was not an easy wicket to bat on initially. I felt he did good and the next step will be to capitalise on the kind of start he got,” Dhoni said.

“It will be important for most of us to capitalise on starts, have wickets in hand because the middle-order batting will be crucial. We might not get 100-120 runs in the last 10 overs every time, we might be restricted to just 80-odd,” Dhoni said with a note of caution. — PTI