It was a disappointing defeat - Dhoni
Chris Dhambarage reporting from Dambulla
India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni described their humiliating
200-run defeat to New Zealand as “disappointing” and said they paid the
price for not holding on to their chances in the first match of the
triangular ODI series on Tuesday.
“We are very disappointed with the way we played. We got couple of
chances but we didn’t accept it. Probably we are on the losing side
because of that,” Dhoni said after his team was bowled out for a paltry
88 chasing 289 to win.
“We didn’t bat well at all. When we got into batting, they got a kind
of bounce that put us in awkward situation,” he added. Dhoni, however,
praised the bowlers for their performance on a pitch which was favouring
the bowlers.
“The bowlers did well. More than the pace it was the bounce here. The
wicket had spongy bounce and that was what did the trick. Ashish Nehra
and Praveen Kumar bowled well. For them Ross and Styris batted really
well,” he said.
Meanwhile New Zealand skipper Ross Taylor acknowledged that Nehra and
Praveen bowled well but said with three seamers in their rank, they knew
anything above 250 would be competitive.
“It was a tough decision to leave out Jeetan Patel. We are happy with
the way we came back today.
Nehra and Praveen bowled really well. But we had three seamers and so
we just wanted to push the score.
“We wanted not to lose too many wickets and get a partnership going
and thought it would be great to reach 250-260 but we reached 288. So we
are very happy,” he said.
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