Mahendra Singh Dhoni blamed India’s bowling at the death for the narrow loss at Kanpur on Sunday. Indian pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav gave away 53 runs in the final three overs that proved decisive in the end.
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While Yadav went for 34 runs in his two overs with Farhaan Behardien smacking five fours and two sixes, Kumar was taken apart for 19 runs by AB de Villiers as he struck two sixes and a four in his final over.
All-rounder Stuart Binny was another bowler de Villiers targeted smashing two fours and two sixes to collect 21 runs as the Proteas raked up 86 in the last six overs.
Dhoni felt the bowlers need to be smarter and restrict the run flow than concede 20 runs in an over.
AB de Villiers’ last seven inns in ODIs in India: 104*. 52, 25, 134, 107*, 102*, 114* Five hundreds in seven innings. Four not outs.
— Mazher Arshad (@cricket_U) October 11, 2015
“It was disappointing because there was reverse swing on offer for the fast bowlers. They should have executed the yorkers or even the back of a length, hitting the deck delivery could have been used more effectively. But we were not able to do that.
“If there is some kind of help, we have to make sure we don’t give away too many runs. There were two occasions where in two overs we gave close to 40 runs. That’s a lot of runs irrespective of the format.”
Dhoni admitted losing their star off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to a side-strain compounded their problems.
“We can’t really help it but until that point of time the game was on because we were not giving runs to them.” Dhoni himself was guilty of failing to close out the game as he struggled with the big hits with just a paddle-swept four off Dale Steyn in his 30-ball 31.
The wicketkeeper-batsman made a grumpy attempt at owning up before directing it towards Virat Kohli (11 off 18 balls), without naming him, for not acclerating in the six-over period between the 34th and 40th overs when just 22 runs were scored.
“Yes, when you bat down the order you have to take the blame especially because of the fact that when you finish many games, people always remember the ones you have not finished,” he said.
“Personally I felt close to the 40th over mark, the four-five overs leading to it, those were crucial because we should have got a bit more runs. I’m not saying we should have played a few big shots, but we could have got a few more runs in those particular overs.”
