All square,with plenty to spare

Smarting from the eight-wicket defeat to West Indies,a dejected Mahendra Singh Dhoni said...

Smarting from the eight-wicket defeat to West Indies,a dejected Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his team failed to gauge the wicket and felt that batsmen should have paid more respect to the rival bowlers.

Dhoni scored a sedate 95 as India suffered a batting collapse against some fierce fast bowling to be dismissed for a modest 188 in 48.2 overs on Sunday. After being down to 82 for eight at one point,the total was a fairly good one,but in the end it proved far too little as West Indies won with more than 15 overs to spare.

Chris Gayle got the chase going with an aggressive 64 off 46 deliveries,while Runako Morton played the anchor,staying unbeaten on 85 as the hosts levelled the four-match series 1-1.

We should have paid a little more respect to the bowlers, Dhoni said. The wicket was a bit difficult,it was swinging around a bit. We didnt judge the wicket well and just went around playing our strokes which really brought our downfall.

Once you lose too many wickets then the only thing that you are doing is catching up. RP and me had a partnership otherwise it would have been quite embarrassing, he said. Dhoni said India could have scored a good total if they would have got off to a better start as the wicket became favourable for batting later on.

When you are batting first,initially you expect the wicket to do a bit and it is the first half an hour and after that you can capitalise if you get a good start, he said.

Talking about Yuvraj Singh,who hit 35 on Sunday,Dhoni said,Yuvraj is the man in-form,he is getting the runs for us but we cant expect one individual to score in each and every game.

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Fully aware that they couldnt have defended such a modest total,Dhoni said he just tried to make life difficult for the rival batsmen. You cant expect to bowl the opponent out within 180,especially on a wicket like this. We just wanted to make it difficult. As long as we can stay on the wicket and make it difficult for them to score runs,that was the motivation, he said.

Meanwhile,West Indies skipper Chris Gayle lauded his bowlers Ravi Rampaul and Jerome Taylor for setting up the win for them. It is nice to square the series. There were some good performances from the guys. Rampaul and Taylor set the game for us and from now we will look to go from strength to strength, he said. There was moisture in the wicket and Taylor and Ravi utilised it well,and the catching was also good,so we just need to keep working on our game.

Gayle also lavished praise on Dhoni and RP Singh for their batting display. Credit goes to Dhoni and RP,they batted really well. We couldnt get that particular wicket at that time but we were confident that we can chase the total in the end, he said.