Dhoni's army takes on Sachin

A legion of MS Dhoni fans are not impressed with the Little Master Sachin Tendulkar for his heavy criticism of their idol. Dhoni did bat a little slowly in his stand with Kedar Jadhav, but this was in a difficult phase of the innings on a slow pitch against Afghanistan last Saturday. In fact, the skipper Virat Kohli also supported Dhoni in saying that the master did what he had to in the middle.

The contest became spicier in the social media as Dhoni fans took it out on Sachin fans for criticising his batting. Sachin did say on a TV channel for which he has been analysing the cricket in the World Cup that Dhoni showed no real intent and that there were too many dot balls allowed.

"I thought they batted very slow, very slow. We batted 34 overs of spin bowling and scored 119 runs. This was one area where we didn't look comfortable at all. There was no positive intent," Sachin said. "There were more than 2-3 dot balls. After Virat got out in the 38th over and till the 45th over we hadn't scored many runs. There were not enough outings for the middle order batsmen till now and that put pressure on them. But the intent could have been much better by the middle order batsmen," he added.

Team India were saved by their bowlers as they kept Afghanistan to within the measly looking India total and the win may have given Dhoni fans more confidence to attack Sachin for his comments on the slow batting in which Dhoni faced 52 balls for his 24 and for pointing out that since Jadhav was getting to face more overs for the first time in the World Cup, the senior batsman Dhoni had to take the initiative.  

Fans were pointing out that while Tendulkar used to swallow a number of deliveries in going from 90 to 100 in many of his ODI innings in a long career, their own idol Dhoni was a selfless attacker in the end overs who was finishing matches and run chases with his contribution. One cruel tweet was to suggest that while Tendlkar played for himself while Dhoni played for the country. Such crude observations were clearly being made from the emotional churning on the social media.

The arguments did not end without some fans pointing out that Dhoni has had a fair media even while he has been seen struggling in the last few years whereas the media had turned against Sachin in his last career days as he struggled to get his 100th international century.