London: Mahendra Singh Dhoni today lavished praise on one of his favourite cricketers 'Sir' Ravindra Jadeja stating that even Indian captain is realising that he is getting to discover a new Jadeja.
"You think I know him (Jadeja) well, but even I'm finding out over a period of time," a smiling Dhoni said at the post-match presentation ceremony as he was asked about Jadeja's strengths having played alongside him at CSK as well.
"He (Jadeja) is a player who provides us with balance in the side as we don't have a quality seamer all-rounder," Dhoni explained as he expressed satisfaction with his team's overall performance. Overall, it was a very good performance. The West Indies got off to a very good start and they seemed like they would get 280 runs or so but our bowlers did very well after that," the skipper said.
"Our bowlers were able to keep the batsmen at their respective ends and didn't let them rotate strike easily. I think the execution was not really there (at the death). We'd been happy with 230 at the outset."
With Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag seeming to be a 'pair of the past', Dhoni is happy that both Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma has risen to the occasion. "I think the young batsmen have accepted the challenge, Dhawan did well in the Tests, Rohit took up the challenge of opening the batting, also it helps that we have changed into a very good fielding side."
The team is already in the semi-final but Dhoni said that they won't take the match against arch-rivals Pakistan lightly. "I don't think Indian team has every played a dead game, I think it is also important in areas where we want to improve including death bowling where we didn't execute our plans correctly."
Man of the Match is Ravindra Jadeja said that sticking to a stump-to-stump line helped his cause. "I was just trying to bowl in the right areas --- wicket-to-wicket and letting the pitch do the rest."
Having played an ODI against England in 2011 at the Oval also helped. "I played here against England and took two wickets."
West Indies captain Dwayne Bravo admitted that were 50 runs short off the target. "Not enough runs, after the start we got. We deserved to get 40-50 runs more but having said that, the Indians bowled well, had their plans and stuck to it."
He congratulated former skipper Darren Sammy for his gutsy half-century that atleast helped West Indies have a total in hand. "Congratulations to Sammy for coming back into the team and performing."
Bravo conceded that rotating the strike was an area of concern for his team. "We need to work on working the ball around, our strike-rates as middle-order batsmen."
His bowlers including Kemar Roach were well off the mark today. "Definitely, we bowled too wide and fast outfield also didn't help our cause. We need to give credit to the Indian batters but we still have a good chance to qualify. Sunil (Narine) is our key bowler but there weren't not enough runs but he bowled very well. My aim was to make sure he bowled out."
The match against South Africa is a virtual quarter-final. "The next match is like a final itself, we know it is not going to be an easy game, but we know we have the talent to do it."