MS Dhoni is matchless in the death overs, feels Alastair Cook

Alastair Cook, the England captain, is all praise for his Indian counterpart, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and feels that the wicketkeeper/batsman is the best in the business when it comes to batting in the death overs of a limited-overs innings.

The Indian skipper played a superb innings under pressure in the second One Day International (ODI) of the five-match series at Kochi to help the Men in Blue level the battle 1-1.

Dhoni came into bat under extreme pressure as India had lost their four top-order batsmen for merely 119 runs on the board. The cricketer from Jharkhand took the responsibility on his shoulders and played a true captain’s knock, scoring 72 runs off merely 66 balls, in which he struck seven boundaries and two massive hits out of the park. He and Ravindra Jadeja helped the hosts post a very competitive total of 285 runs on the board.

The visitors, in their chase, succumbed under pressure and were all out for just 158 runs in only 36 overs, handing over a massive victory to the home team.

The Indian side has been struggling to deliver the goods off-late; however, Dhoni has shown brilliant form in the recently-concluded series against Pakistan and now he is carrying on with the good work against the Poms.

The English captain admitted after the loss that Dhoni took the game away from the English team and feels that the middle-order batsman is extremely effective in the later stages of a limited-overs innings.

“He [Dhoni] is probably the best player in the world in those situations, in these conditions,” Cook said. “He does it time and time again. He's incredibly hard to bowl at and with that extra man in the circle, it's very, very hard to stop on these flat wickets.”

Cook also defended his decision of not bowling James Tredwell or Joe Root in the death overs.

“You're always going to have hindsight, but probably one batsman you don't want an offspinner bowling to is Dhoni,” the England captain added. “We've seen him a number of times and with a spinner at the end, it's very hard to bowl to him.”