Indians jubilate after the fall of a Bangladesh wicket in the first ODI

Dhaka: Cricket manager Ravi Shastri has confessed his heart did miss a beat or two when wickets kept falling in the opening ODI, but chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar said he’d been calm.

“I had faith in (Mahendra Singh) Dhoni and (Dinesh) Karthik... Plus, there was Ramesh Powar to follow... Honestly, I wasn’t tense,” he told The Telegraph after a 45-minute pool side meeting with captain Rahul Dravid and Shastri on Friday afternoon.

Vengsarkar, who would have been under pressure had the ‘young’ team tripped at the first hurdle, added: “There are advantages in having young players... Even if they don’t play, they can take in a lot by watching close finishes first-hand...”

He praised MoM Dhoni for an “outstanding” innings. “He had to concentrate really hard, more so because of the cramps, but was outstanding... What an effort!”

Vengsarkar, who has had a hand in picking Karthik as a batsman who can slip into the big gloves, had praise for him too.

The five-wicket win, though, took a lot out of the players. Yuvraj Singh, for example, went back to sleep after the pool session. “I ran a lot in that heat... I need to recover...”

Yuvraj survived just nine balls, but had been Dhoni’s ‘runner’ for much of that exceptional innings.