Sydney: Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni blamed the rain for the defeat in the first Twenty20 international against Australia, saying the wet conditions made it difficult for bowlers.
“The weather played a big part in it. In England, we didn’t win any tosses and it rained in the second innings and our bowling suffered because of that. This is the first toss I won over here and with the rain forecast I thought we would chase. But then it rained and spinners had difficulty in gripping the ball,” said Dhoni in what is turning out to be a miserable summer for him.
“With the rain forecast and with the learning from England, I thought we would chase because the wicket gets better to bat on,” he pointed out.
No sooner had Dhoni won the toss, it began to rain and even though it stopped soon enough, the ground was quite wet which affected the spinners from gripping the ball.
“I thought the wicket, if it doesn’t get better it would at least remain the same. We got off to a good start but after that it didn’t rain. It started to turn and grip and the odd ball was bouncing more than the normal delivery. It was difficult.”
Dhoni though didn’t stop short of criticising his batters who failed to show any application. “May be if the top order would have stayed for a bit longer, with the new batsman coming in, they would play their shots with someone at the other end. The result could have been different because we struggled a lot and yet we were able to score 140-odd runs.” (PTI)