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Dravid likens Dhoni's blitz to Tendulkar's desert storm

I have been privileged to see some great one-day innings by Sachin, Veeru and Sourav. But possibly in a chase, this is pretty close to the hundred Sachin made against Australia in Sharjah

Cricinfo staff
31-Oct-2005


Tom Moody on MS Dhoni: 'He mishit two balls in all, hit ten sixes! What can you do about that?' © Getty Images
Rahul Dravid
On Dhoni's innings
"I have been privileged to see some great one-day innings by Sachin, Veeru and Sourav. But possibly in a chase, this is pretty close to the hundred Sachin made against Australia in Sharjah. I watched that game on television because I wasn't part of the team, and this has to be one of the best knocks in a game that I have been part of."
On people delivering when promoted to No. 3
"The important thing is that we have put different people in different positions, and they have all responded magnificently, which gives us a lot of options. It's all about setting out challenges, and getting the guys to react to them. The idea is to be flexible in your thinking and approach, so that we can go forward, but for that, we must have the people who can do different roles, and fortunately, we have the personnel now."
On Harbhajan Singh's bowling
"He was exceptional in the context of the game. To go for 30 runs in ten overs on a track like this was pretty special."
Tom Moody
On the team's performance
"We made a significant improvement today. The first two games were pretty disappointing, but we can take a lot of positives from this performance. The innings of Kumar Sangakkara and of the whole team with the bat was very good. I thought it was an excellent total, but you don't see an innings of the kind Dhoni played very often. You have to give credit where it is due; it was a very special effort.
On whether his team could turn things around
"If we continue to make that improvement, there is no reason why we can't turn things around, why we can't start winning games. We still feel we are in the contest. But when someone bats like Dhoni did today, there is precious little you can do to stop him. He made 183 from 145 balls, and you have to go through a lot of records to see that happen. I know, and you all know, that we saw something special today. He mishit two balls in all, hit ten sixes! What can you do about that?"
On how the pitch held up
"Looking at the track, I felt from the outset that anything in excess of 250 would be a good total here. Through Sanga's innings and his partnership with Mahela (Jayawardena), we put up a very competitive total, and we got into a better position than we had anticipated. We had thought the track would play lower and slower as the game progressed, that's what the guys that we spoke too also told us. But it played very well throughout, and all credit to the groundsman for having produced a wonderful surface."
Kumar Sangakkara
On his own innings
"Losing is always disappointing, it hurts a lot when you lose any game. It is pretty special to score a hundred, and to me, each one of them is as good as the other, so I don't like to rate them, but the hundred, or even a fifty, would have been more welcome had the team won."