Dhawan’s injury caused ‘unrest’: Dhoni

Brisbane, December 20

An “unrest” hit the Indian dressing room on Saturday morning when opener Shikhar Dhawan decided not to resume his innings at the start of play. Overnight unbeaten on 26, the left-hander was hit on his hand at the nets before the play started and, at the last minute, he decided not to go out and bat.

He came to bat when six wickets had fallen, but did not appear to be in any discomfort before eventually top-scoring with 81.

“After he was hit, we thought he was good enough to bat but he was not. With that kind of scenario, there is a bit of unrest, the calmness of the dressing room goes for a toss,” said MS Dhoni.

Dhoni said Virat Kohli got less than 10 minutes to prepare himself before going out there in place of Dhawan.

“It was quite late and we could give maybe only 5-10 minutes’ notice to Virat. That’s something we could have handled better but it’s something that we will have to take it in our stride.”

Dhoni felt India required calmness for about 25 minutes as that would have had a stabilising effect. “What was really needed was some kind of a partnership, 20-25 minutes batting and things would have been normal. But that didn’t happen. That was the area we lacked and we couldn’t really capitalise on,” he added.

‘Poor wickets, no veg food’

The day was also marred by other controversies with the Indian team management complaining about the practice wickets as well as vegetarian food not being served to the players in the stadium.

On day three of the match, vegetarian food was not provided at lunch and the two Indian players, Ishant Sharma and Suresh Raina, complained about it. They then proceeded outside the stadium premises to procure proper vegetarian food, accompanied by ICC’s ACSU personnel and team director Ravi Shastri. However on their return, they were told that food or beverages can’t be brought inside the stadium.

The two players consumed their food sitting outside and then returned to the dressing room. The Indian team management also issued a statement complaining about the quality of practice pitches, which according to the visitors, resulted in injuries to Dhawan and Kohli.

To top it all, their ploy to sledge Mitchell Johnson backfired badly as the pacer went on to not just play a 88-run knock but also ripped through Indian line-up in the second innings. Dhoni accepted that this defeat was “disappointing” and the team needs to look at corrective measures. — Agencies