Expressing displeasure over the Indian cricket team's humiliating loss to England in the four match test series, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of the Indian team on Monday attributed the reason for the loss to poor batting performance and weak partnerships.
Expressing displeasure over the Indian cricket team's humiliating loss to England in the four match test series, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of the Indian team on Monday attributed the reason for the loss to poor batting performance and weak partnerships.
England completed a series whitewash over India when they won the fourth test by an innings and eight runs on the last day of the four test match series between the two teams at the Oval cricket ground in London.
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India, following on in their second innings, collapsed to 283 all out in the second session after Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed on 91 by Tim Bresnan with just nine runs short of his much anticipated 100th international century.
Tendulkar added 144 for the fourth wicket with Amit Mishra, who added 84 runs to the Indian score board before being bowled by Graeme Swann. Quick seven wickets fell for 21 runs, crippling India.
Talking to media persons, Dhoni said that the main reason for the team not performing well was poor batting performances and lack of effective partnerships between Indian batsmen.
"We were not able to build any sort of partnership and you know it is all about partnership and not loosing wickets at quick succession because it sets like a panic in the dressing room, if you loose wicket in quick succession, so I think we should have been able to stop that but we were not really able to do, so I think that was the main reason why the game ended so quickly," said Dhoni.
Meanwhile, he applauded Rahul Dravid, and said that he performed consistently and managed to put runs on the board even when the rest failed.
"He (Rahul Dravid) has been brilliant throughout the series, you know he loves England, he loves scoring here and not to forget he had to bat at a different slot, you know he opened for us. He batted at number three, so I think it also makes it a bit more special when the team is not performing, you know all of a sudden the batsman who is performing feels a bit more pressure on himself, because he knows he has been performing in the series. I think he did a real good job, it is always good to have him in the side, you know when the ball starts moving but odd series you can say where the others the others didn't perform, but I think he was brilliant throughout the series," he said.
Dravid completed his 35th test century to move ahead of his boyhood hero Sunil Gavaskar and West Indian Brian Lara in the all-time list behind Tendulkar (51), South Africa's Jacques Kallis (40) and Australia's Ricky Ponting (39).
Meanwhile, talking to media persons captain of the England cricket team, Andrew Strauss hailed the victory of the host team and said that the entire team was very motivated to finish the series 4-0.
"I think we were very motivated by the idea of making it (test match series) four-zero. We were confident; we felt that we had the ability to win this final game ufffd ufffd and I said that's what I am most proud about as the guys were prepared to do that even when it didn't really have to and I think that is good for our future," said Strauss.
He also said that the strength of the England cricket team is its consistent bowling performance.
"I think if you look at a lot of sides we have played in the last couple of years, some very good batsman have stood in front of our bowlers so I think I would prefer to view some outstanding bowling performances and obviously when you get on top of opposition sides, when their confidence is reduced then it becomes even harder for them to compete, so I think it leads to a gradual erosion of their confidence and gradual increase in our confidence," added Strauss.
England took over from India as the world's top-ranked nation when they won the third test at Edgbaston. India now ranks three in international test cricket.
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