Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni admitted that his batsmen were once again done in by the bouncer as India lost to England by three runs and crashed out of the ICC World Twenty20, at Lord's, on Sunday.
"In the middle overs they bowled the bouncers really well. They were using the short deliveries and at the same time mixing it with the slower bouncers. They bowled really well," a visibly dejected Dhoni said after the defeat.
He also said admitted that sending Yuvraj Singh down the order was another mistake that could have been avoided, because when he walked in he was faced with the Herculean task of scoring 92 from the last 56 deliveries.
"Of course, one of the areas was that Yuvraj could have gone, but it was early, around the fourth or fifth over mark. We thought if a batsman goes in and if a wicket falls around the eighth, ninth or tenth over it really sets the game for us, then we can really look to chase if the score is around nine or ten runs per over.
"I think that was one area where we could have something different; but there is a fair amount of gamble that you need to do. Maybe, next time we will send Yuvraj," he said.
Another tactical error India made was dropping the in-form Pragyan Ojha, though in Dhoni's defence you could say Ravindra Jadeja, who replaced him, had a good outing with the ball.
Left-arm spinner Ojha is India's top wicket-taker in the tournament with seven wickets from three matches, at an average of 9.71 and an economy rate of 6.18.
"We gambled, and instead of Pragyan we had Ravindra Jadeja; I thought he did the work with the ball. Since we had that all-rounder it filled in the space of Irfan Pathan and we went in for a specialist seamer and RP Singh did it for us again. I don't think it was the change that did it for us, but we committed a few mistakes and they bowled really well," he said.
It was Jadeja's subdued batting in the middle overs that ultimately made the difference. The left-hander looked completely out of place during his painstaking innings of 25 from 35 deliveries. England's pacers realized his weakness against the short delivery pretty soon and kept bombarding him with half-trackers which he kept swatting for most of his stay in the middle.
"He was looking to play shots and there were no instructions that you have to go and get the barrier in. It was more like play your natural game. I think the short ball was really bowled well at him. Even the slower short balls with deep midwicket and deep fine legs and all the fielders were in position.
"It was one of those days you can say where it never really worked for him, because he is a good puller and had done well even in South Africa during the IPL," Dhoni said in defence of his team-mate.
Asked why he chose to chase in such a high-pressure game, Dhoni replied: "One of the reasons we wanted to chase was because we felt that the wicket gets a bit better in the second innings. Under the lights it comes on nicely and there is not much turn for the spinners."
