Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday admitted that they lost the final of the ICC World Twenty20 2014 against Sri Lanka due to their last four overs of batting but refrained from putting the blame entirely on the shoulders of Yuvraj Singh.
Sri Lanka gave away only 19 runs in the last four overs as Yuvraj made seven from the 11 deliveries that he faced during that juncture which slowed down the run rate significantly.
The Lankans capitalised on it to claim their maiden ICC World T20 title by six wickets as they cruised to 134-4 in 17.5 overs after earlier restricting India to 130-4.
‘You need to put as many runs as you can and we couldn’t capitalise on that,’ said Dhoni during the post-match conference.
‘The thing is he [Yuvraj] was trying and that’s the most you can do.
‘Yuvi tried his best. It was an off day for him. There are times when it’s not easy for a batsman to go in and start slogging.
‘If you see our batting lineup most of our batsmen are really good T20 batsmen. We only have one, somebody like Suresh Raina who can go in and really start hitting from the first ball.
‘Which means, you know, most of the other batsmen, they like to spend a bit of time and then play the big shots. That is one more reason why we want Yuvi to bat at four and Suresh Raina at five.
‘You want a left-right combination which makes it a little difficult for the bowler to execute their plans. That’s the reason why we had Yuvi at number four,’ he added.
Dhoni also credited the Sri Lankan bowlers for putting up an extraordinary effort at the death overs which he believed was an example of executing their plan to perfection.
India were 95-2 in 15 overs before the Islanders came back strongly to win a global tournament after contesting in two World T20 and two World Cup finals.
‘You should give credit to the Sri Lankan bowlers. They executed their plan brilliantly. They were looking for wide yorkers and all the balls were perfect, wide yorkers,’ said Dhoni.
‘I think they only bowled one wide or something other than that I think they were right on mark which further made it difficult for our batsmen to score freely,’ he added.
-With New Age input
