Guess who’s happiest with Dhoni? Dravid

Pakistan vice-captain Younis Khan, on his part, admitted that his team was caught off-guard by Dhoni’s blistering innings. ‘‘Usually, when we play against India we have a few target players in our scheme of things. For instance, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid are the three top players on our list and we devise strategies against them in every match. But Dhoni came as a bolt from the blue at Vizag. We were not prepared for him. It was his day in the middle and we just stood and watched. But now we know what he is capable of,’’ he said.

After winning two matches on the trot, it is generally expected that the winning team would like to keep the momentum going and coach John Wright was pretty straightforward about it. ‘‘We want to finish off the series here itself and close all avenues of escape for them,’’ he said. Dravid, however, was rather cautious. ‘‘We had a meeting today, basically telling each other not to get complacent and keep up the winning habit,’’ he said.

As for Younis, he had a simple theory on offer. ‘‘I hope we win the next two matches and level the series. That will make the last two one-dayers interesting,’’ he said.