Dhoni admits death bowling let India down

He also said the batsmen, too, didn’t help the team’s cause at Rajkot by getting out after settling down.

By Baidurjo Bhose | Mail Today – Sat 12 Jan, 2013 9:47 AM IST

Rajkot: India ended up conceding 38 runs in the last two overs of the England innings and skipper MS Dhoni feels that was what cost India the game on Friday.

Speaking to the media at the post-match conference, Dhoni admitted that the last few overs definitely didn’t go according to plan.

“I was expecting this question and yes, the last couple of overs were bad. Maybe if we didn’t give away so many, we could have won this game,” he said.

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But he was quick to point out that the batsmen, too, didn’t help the team’s cause by getting out after settling down.

“I am happy that all the batsmen scored runs. But chasing a big total, it was important to keep wickets in hand till the end so that we could stay in hunt. But that wasn’t the case today (Friday),” he rued.

Commenting on the surprise decision to drop Shami Ahmed and play Ashoke Dinda, Dhoni said: “The last game, we played on a wicket which helped the bowlers. But we had no clue about how Shami would bowl when the wicket isn’t helping, so we decided to go ahead with Dinda.”

Dhoni also said that he was happy with the kind of wicket produced and didn’t find it disturbing that the bowlers got no help from the surface.

“In ODIs, more often than not you get wickets like these. The wickets are prepared in such a way that plenty of runs are scored. Also, the outfield here was really fast. On another ground, this would have been a target of 270-280,” he said.

Dhoni also said that his dismissal was crucial and came at the wrong time.

“As I said, we needed to have wickets in hand but that did not happen. Had I stayed for two more overs, things could have been different,” he said.

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