Dhoni blames pacers for New Zealand series loss

Hamilton, Jan 28 (IANS) India cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni blamed his fast bowlers after losing the five-match One-Day International (ODI) series against New Zealand 0-3 here Tuesday.

India put up a respectable total of 278/5 in their 50 overs, which the Black Caps chased down in 48.1 overs with seven wickets to spare in the fourth ODI.

“We are still not sure who our choices for fast bowlers are and what individuals we are looking forward to. We get bowlers who can bowl quick but they end up giving more runs without even bowling at the slog. So, we have to find a fair balance and need a fair amount of improvement,” Dhoni said bluntly at the post-match press conference.

“It was quite a disappointing bowling performance from the fast bowlers. The middle overs were a crucial phase where with the open field we should not have given away too many runs. But we were giving a boundary every over and not being able to build any pressure.”

The skipper said that he has the abundance of pacers but they need to improvise a lot.

“When it comes to the talent part, we definitely have fast bowlers who can bowl well. But they will have to start using their brains more and improvise themselves. This is one area where we lack. But if you see the talent aspect, definitely we have got bowlers who can do well,” Dhoni said, who made his third consecutive half-century, scoring an unbeaten 79 off 73 balls.

However, the 32-year-old praised his spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja who were the only economical bowlers. Though both went without wickets in their 10 overs, the tweakers slowed down the run rate in the middle overs.

“Our spinners look good. We know they will carry on until the World Cup, provided there are no injuries. The positive is they bowled really well. I saw the first 10 overs how the pacers bowled. I wasn’t sure they would be able to keep the pressure on. So I thought that it was important to keep the spinners and use them later to some extent when New Zealand had to go for the big shots,” said the wicketkeeper-batsman.

“It was a wicket where you would like the bowlers to hit the back of length mark close to the off-stump area but right from the start we gave away too many boundaries. We gave too much width and the balls were quite short, which meant New Zealand could freely score off them.”