India have already bagged the milestone of becoming the only team to win the entire major limited over titles in eyesight – the World Cup and the World Twenty20, while they have also lived up to their expectation in the major tournaments by reaching the finals quite often. India captain MS Dhoni thinks they must control the emotion in order to bring home another title today.
“Emotions are something, I personally feel you have to keep at bay. As human beings we are all emotional but when you are playing at a professional level, it is very important that you have control over your emotions. For us what is important is doing well in the final. The other factors we don’t really focus on because it is more important to win a World cup for your country than focus on stats,” Dhoni said at the pre-match conference at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.
He respected their opponent Sri Lanka and said they have a good blend of youth and experience at their disposal which makes them suitable for these conditions.
However, the 32-year-old captain cool also added that his side has played clinical cricket throughout the tournament and though they were tested against South Africa, with a slightly bigger target than usual, they did end up on the winning side successfully.
“As far as the last game is concerned I thought we were really tested to some extent, the reason being in most of the games we were chasing near 140, and this was the only game where we were chasing more than 170 which were 30 more,” said Dhoni. “There was a bit of calmness in the dressing room, but we had the belief that we could chase it down because the wicket also was playing slightly better. Overall it was a good test, the reason being we scored in excess of 170 and at the same time we restricted opponents to 70, 80 and even 120,” he added.
India holds the physiological advantage over their familiar foes as Sri Lanka have ended on the losing side on most previous occasions, but Dhoni informed the statistics hardly matters in T20 it depends on who plays well on the given day.
“Well in this format, I don’t think psychological advantage really matters because the difference between the good sides is very narrow the reason being it’s such a short format. I feel it all boils down to how well you have played on that particular day and how the individuals respond to a particular situation. I think that will be crucial, it’s not about what we have done in the past,” said Dhoni.
India’s most successful captain ever Dhoni labeled his team members as T20 specialists and said they are multi dimensional and have been performing in the other formats of the game as well. He also praised the run machine Virat Kohli’s approach towards the game and said the versatile batsman always grabs a chance which comes his way.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
