Smarting from the embarrassing eight-wicket loss to West Indies, India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his batsmen failed to gauge the wicket and didn't give enough respect to the rival bowlers.
Dhoni stood tall amid the ruins with a sedate 95 as India suffered a batting collapse to be dismissed for a modest 188 in 48.2 overs on Sunday.
"We should have paid a little more respect to the bowlers. The wicket was a bit difficult, it was swinging around a bit. We didn't judge the wicket well and just went around playing our strokes which really brought our downfall," Dhoni said after the match.
"Once you lose too many wickets then the only thing that you are doing is catching up. RP (Singh) and me had a partnership otherwise it would have been quite embarrassing," he added.
Dhoni forged a record 101-run partnership for the ninth wicket with Singh to stage India's recovery after they were reduced to 82-8 in 22 overs. Dhoni said India could have put up a good total if they had got off to a better start as the wicket became favourable for batting later on.
"Later on, the wicket became better for batting. 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 up 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 can't expect one individual to score in every game."
Well aware that the modest total was nearly impossible to defend, Dhoni said he just tried to make life difficult for the rival batsmen.
"You can't 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 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.
"Credit goes to Dhoni and RP, they batted really well. We couldn't get that particular wicket at that time but we were confident that we can chase the total in the end," he said.
