We wanted to fight fire with fire: Dhoni

While there has been much team chatter about the short ball over the last couple of days as Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team geared up to remove a stain got over two decades....

While there has been much team chatter about the short ball over the last couple of days as Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team geared up to remove a stain got over two decades,India lost the game against Australia even before they played the first ball on Friday.

India have traditionally been poor against the short ball,and the placid wickets back home,excessive improvisation and lack of basic technique in the young breed only accentuate that. But thats for the long haul. The need of the hour is a quick-fix solution.

After the defeat,skipper Dhoni almost admitted there was a lot on their mind when the team went out to bat. For the last 20 years,India has had this problem, he said,but we have done well in Durban,one of the quickest wickets we have played on. While we have been successful on and off,there is room for improvement.

He said India wanted to fight fire with fire and take on the Australian fast bowlers. We had the fire power to chase a target of 170 to 180, he said,but we lost too many wickets at the start and lost our way in the game.

We knew we would be peppered with short balls,which we did not handle too well. It is not easy to attack bowlers who bowl at 145 kmph.

Dhonis Australian counterpart Michael Clarke said it was surprising that the Indians buckled so easily but things worked exactly in set pieces. More than the bouncers,our bowlers used the pace well, Clarke said. We bowled well but its important to back the bouncer with speed,and its exciting to see how our bowlers used speed well.

On a day when Clarke said Shane Watson and David Warner are the best Twenty20 opening combination in the world,India missed Virender Sehwag and his ability to take on fast bowling by its horns and play the upper cut in an unconventional manner. Murali Vijay,his replacement,tried his own version of an innings without sufficient arsenal in his armoury.

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Dhoni,however,isnt giving up on Vijay yet. Its important for the skipper to back his players and their belief,but in this case the reason could be all mixed up: more a lack of resources than anything else.