Dhoni is a cool customer as a captain but he says he can get a bit worked up when things don't go according to plan. “When there is pressure on you, you are never cool. You give the opportunity to the bowler, you set the field, when it doesn’t work you sometimes turn from a democratic captain to a autocrat. You become like a king, and you say, ‘this is the field and you bowl according to the field’.

“"But it’s always better to give the first preference to the bowler. With experience, they will get better. If you keep spoon-feeding them, they won’t learn too much.”

In this series, Dhoni has used Ishant as first-change and instead allowed Praveen Kumar and Munaf to take the new ball. “It depends on the third seamer. If Praveen is playing, the best chance for him is with the new ball as he is a swing bowler. Ishant can bowl with a new and slightly older ball as well. In ODIs, you have to combine the fast bowlers so that you become a good bowling attack as a unit. You can’t say we have good new-ball bowlers — if we don’t get a wicket from them, there will be pressure," he says.

Dhoni’s instinct continues to come good, but Saturday’s match, he said, was a timely reminder that you can trip when you’re running too fast.

Yuvraj cleared

Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh was cleared of the charges of showing dissent at an umpiring decision in the second ODI against Sri Lanka. “Yuvraj had been charged under Level 1.3 of the ICC Code of Conduct. But at the resultant hearing, Chris Broad of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees cleared him of the charge,” the ICC said in a statement.