Dhoni looks to limber up 'rigid' batting order

For a match which had a shadow of politics over it in the run-up, the finale happened amidst fireworks - the big, booming, fill-the-sky-with-lights kind of scenes - for the handful of spectators who hung around after India had been beaten in Rajkot. MS Dhoni arrived for the press conference, waited a bit for the noise to die down and then decided he ought to enjoy a bit of the show himself.

When he finally came back to address the media, matters were more to the point. One of the topics addressed was that the batting shuffle in the third ODI was one of the ways India's line-up could look to become flexible and ensure their batsmen adapted to the pressures and demands of batting at various positions in ODIs, a push put of their comfort zone.

India were set a target of 271 by South Africa, and like the previous two ODIs, the side opted to shuffle its batting order again. Virat Kohli walked out at No. 3, a position many feel he is best suited for, and he responded with 77, his first fifty since the World Cup. Dhoni himself came in at No. 4, a position he has said in the past he wanted to bat at but could not because of the relative inexperience in the line-up. Ajinkya Rahane, who played at No. 3 in the two preceding ODIs, came in at No. 6 below Suresh Raina, by when Morne Morkel and the rest of South Africa's attack had effectively throttled the chase.

One reason for the shuffle, Dhoni had said in the post-match presentation, was that India hadn't quite settled on a stable order at five, six, and seven and needed a stronger batting hand at No. 7.

"I want to bat up the order but I also want people who can contribute lower down the order. So I have to mix and match it and what will be good will be if I can bat a number of overs, create a partnership and if I have played enough deliveries I can play the big shots later on," Dhoni said. "That's the thinking behind it, but it means that a few of the other batsmen will also have to accommodate according to that. They may score at times, they may not score at times, but the good thing is they'll get experience of batting down the order.

"Also because at times I felt the Indian batting line-up becomes quite rigid - 'This is my batting slot and there is where I will bat' - but at times when you bat down the order you get to know what are the difficulties. I won't say it's easy to bat up the order but you always have the cushion of three-four batsmen behind you so you know you can play your big shots. But once you are batting at five or six, No. 7 is quite thin so when you are looking to play the big shots, you have to back yourself and say, 'Okay I can't really mistime it.' These are the pressures that you have to go through if you are batting down the order."

Some part of that churn, to bat people at different positions and see who fits what role, also happened when India toured Sri Lanka recently. Rohit Sharma and Rahane had swapped positions three and five for the first two Tests, batting around Kohli at No. 4. After the first ODI in Kanpur, Dhoni had stated how Rahane batting at No. 3 gave the home side a lot of strength on paper, and while he promoted Kohli back to No. 3 today, Dhoni said the team could revisit the idea of keeping him at No. 4, as they look to strengthen the lower half of their batting order.

"If I have to bat up the order, someone has to bat down the order," he said. "There's a lot of confusion when it comes to the media side because they want me to bat at four but they want Virat to bat at three and they want Jinx (Rahane) to bat at four. It's not really possible, there are only two slots and only three batsmen.

"There will always be a question. As I said, I've explained it, we want Virat to bat at three but at some point we'd love to have a look at him at four. Usually the No. 4 batsman will get to play 30 overs and 30 overs is a good number of overs to score a hundred and it also adds depth to our batting.

Not to forget we are still looking for somebody at No. 7 who can play the big shots and if that doesn't happen, the extra pressure has to be absorbed by the top six batters. So you have to find people who fulfil that job and also you have to play with five bowlers because the part-timers find it slightly difficult to bowl full quota of ten overs. So there are a lot of things that you have to manage and accordingly decide which person suits the position the best."

In Rajkot, India scored only 37 runs during overs 31 to 40 with Dhoni and Kohli in the middle, and it left the lower order with too much to do at the end. And with the pitch slowing down considerably, India found the big shots harder to execute. Dhoni, however, also pointed out that India's slow start had an impact on the chase.

"I think that was the crucial phase, that and the first ten. I don't think we got enough runs in the first ten, especially the fact that the wicket kept getting slower," he said. "And 30th to 40th was again a crucial period. We wanted to bat quite late but at the same time we started playing the big shots close to the 37th over but we were not really able to connect. Both me and Virat were set and we wanted to play the big shot but we never really middled anything.

"Also not to forget the outfield here is big which meant that when you are playing the big shots more often than not you have to clear the fielder. It was a tough one when there's less pace on offer you can't use the pace of the bowlers."