01 October,2009 07:16 AM IST | | Debasish Datta
Under fire from all quarters following a lacklustre performance in the Champions Trophy, India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni defended his team saying that they were not as bad as they were made out to be.
India failed to qualify for the Champions Trophy semi-finals after Australia pipped Pakistan yesterday to top their group. Pakistan took the second spot.
"I don't think our team is as bad as we seem. We were chasing 300 runs in the first match and the Australia match was washed out. It is tough for me to accept that we are that bad," Dhoni said after their consolation win over West Indies.
India has a poor record in crunch matches and it is the second straight major ICC event that Dhoni's men have faltered. They put up a dismal show at the ICC World Twenty20. "I was much more disappointed with the World T20 defeat because we had sufficient time to prepare. Here, we played only one warm-up game and went straight into the tournament. But the bottomline is we did not play well. Now, it is up to you to write what you feel like," said Dhoni.
Asked about what went wrong for India here, Dhoni said: "The bowlers gave a lot of width and the fielding was not up to the mark. Running between wickets has to improve but these are small areas which we can mend. We will assemble before the Australia ODI series to iron out these flaws."
India's semi-final chances depended on Pakistan beating Australia in the day's other game. It turned out to be a thriller with Pakistanu00a0 almost pulling off an upset.
"We saw the Australia versus Pakistan match on television when we came back to the dressing room. It was more important than our match then.
"We saw the climax. We were hoping that Pakistan would beat Australia," said the hapless skipper.
