Dhoni warns hot-head Sreesanth to cool it

Chennai, (AFP): India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has warned controversial fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth to cut out the hot-headed theatrics at the World Cup.

Dhoni was left unimpressed by trouble-prone Sreesanth's latest antics in Wednesday's 117-run warm-up win over New Zealand when he fired a verbal volley at Kiwi opener Brendon McCullum.

The outburst came just four days after the bowler went face-to-face with Australian skipper Ricky Ponting when he made a gesture of a 'L' with his thumb and forefinger to imply 'Loser'.

Dhoni has now publically warned the 28-year-old, who was a late call-up to the India World Cup squad after Praveen Kumar withdrew with an injury, to curb his enthusiasm.
"I told him that he should not cross a few boundaries. If you want to irritate someone that should be the opposition and not your side," said Dhoni.

"Until he does both these things, I am really happy to let him do whatever he wants to do. As for his behaviour today, I don't think there was much. A bit of chit-chat is always fine. As I said, you should not get too personal with a player. If these guidelines are followed I am quite happy with it."

Sreesanth went wicketless in the match against the Black Caps, finishing with 0-38 off five bowlers. Dhoni has warned his seam attack that they need to improve once action begins in the World Cup on Saturday when India face Bangladesh in Dhaka.

India's batsmen plundered runs in Chennai before the spinners took seven wickets to seal an emphatic 117-run win. But the performance of the fast bowlers was a sore point with frontline left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra's two wickets costing 77 runs from 7.1 overs.
Sreesanth and Munaf Patel gave away more than six runs an over without any success while spearhead Zaheer Khan was rested to allow him to recover completely from a groin injury.

"The pacers definitely need to improve," Dhoni said. "They are currently not able to give 100 per cent in practice because we have asked our seamers to save themselves for the main games.

"Maybe that is what is reflecting in their performances. But hopefully, they will do well once the tournament starts and they put that extra effort." India, though, are not the only team having problems with their seamers.

Pakistan are sweating over the form and fitness of Shoaib Akhtar who is part of a pace attack already depleted by the absence of banned duo Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif.

Akhtar was not fielded in the warm-up win against Bangladesh on Tuesday despite all his talk about how he was back to his match-winning ways. "Shoaib is not in touch at the moment," coach Waqar Younis said. "If he gets it right against England in the next (warm-up) game on Friday, he is obviously our number one choice."

Akhtar, who last played a Test match in 2007 before being sidelined with a string of injuries, has claimed 244 one-day wickets in 160 matches at an average of 24.78.

Source: http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/news/article?id=item/2.0/-/story/cricket.yahoonews.com/dhoni-warns-hothead-sreesanth-cool--20110217/

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