Dravid was padded to come at number three: Dhoni

But the skipper defended his decision saying the former captain was originally slated to come in at number three.

“Rahul was padded up for long to bat at no three. Then I promoted Irfan to number three and, when he was out, sent Rahul. It’s true he’s been struggling a bit of late, but that has happened to all of us, including Sachin. He also did not get the strike in the beginning,” Dhoni said at the press conference after the 18-run loss in the sixth ODI which handed Australia the series.

“By the time he went out to bat, the asking rate had

already climbed to 7.5 and it’s not easy for a new batsman to cope up with it,” said Dhoni.

Dravid, with a tally of just 44 in the series before today, came in at 189 for 2 after the 33rd over and was fifth out at 218 in the 41st over.

Dhoni rued the missed catches off man of the match Andrew Symonds, who smashed an unbeaten 107 off 88 balls, as one of the main reasons for the defeat.

“We let off a couple of catches of Symonds and we never got the wickets when we needed them. When we batted we had a good opening stand (of 140 between Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly) but then kept losing wickets when partnerships were needed later,” he said.