India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni goes soft on his famed batting line-up after yet another overseas failure
India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni goes soft on his famed batting line-up after yet another overseas failure
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At the Adelaide Oval in 1999, the first Australia-India Test, Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh rescued Australia from 52-4 -- took the total to 441. Four years ago at Sydney, India allowed Andrew Symonds and Brad Hogg to steer Australia from 134-6 to 463.
Flop show: MS Dhoni is bowled by Australia's James Pattinson on Day
Four of the first Test at the MCG yesterday. Pic/Getty Images
These are only a few instances when India's bowlers let Australia off the hook. For most part of the last two decades, India failed to capitalise on good positions in overseas Tests courtesy of a bowling attack struggling to take 20 wickets. This time though, India can be proud of a quality attack that can bowl a side out twice on any surface in the world.u00a0
That's no exaggeration.u00a0 Unfortunately, it's the eminent batting that's been the downer. This is a batting side with players on their fifth, fourth or third tours here, except Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir. And yet, India have crossed 300 only once in the last 16 outings abroad.
Dhoni is worried. "We thought with a 230 (overnight lead for Australia), we could have chased 230 or 240. But 290 was also a score we should have got. The wicket was good; it was not like there was any wear and tear. I think the batting line-up flopped in both the innings.
"In the first innings, we got off to a decent start. We had a kind of partnership going, after that we needed to capitalise on it. We were not really able to do that, because of which we were close to 50 runs short.
Difficult
"In the second innings, wickets kept falling at regular intervals, which meant getting close to 300-odd runs was more and more difficult.
Just that we need to get consistent with our batting," he told reporters. When asked if it hurt him that the famed batting line-up failed yet again overseas, Dhoni said: "I am the sort of person who looks at the positives. When you look at the negatives, there are plenty that you can find.
"The big positive is we have been able to take 20 wickets. The target (of 292) we could have achieved. We are hoping that the mistakes we committed in this game won't be repeated in the next Test," he said.
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