Mumbai: Opener Shikhar Dhawan said Tuesday the loss of four quick wickets in the middle overs was the main reason behind India’s crushing 10-wicket loss to Australia in the first ODI here.
“We handled those first 10-15 overs very nicely. As I said that where we lost four wickets in a go, the game changed for us. From then on we were behind the game and then we were trying to cover it, so that is where we went wrong,” said Dhawan, who top scored for India with 74 off 91 balls.
India lost five quick wickets after Dhawan and KL Rahul (47) had rallied the innings with their 121-run stand for the second wicket.
“KL (Rahul) got out. That time we planned to accelerate and those four wickets we lost, that’s where we lost the momentum. We were targeting 300 runs but we ended up scoring less runs. In bowling, we could not take early wickets. They (Australia) outplayed us,” admitted the left-handed opener.
Dhawan said it would be wrong to say that Indian batting was too dependent on him, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
“See it is just one bad day in office. We played really well against West Indies then all the batsmen did well,” Dhawan stated.
“Shreyas (Iyer) has been doing so well and he is a young lad, one-odd innings is going to go here and there, but we as a team back each other and we don’t focus or put too much on one loss. They played really well, we were bit unlucky as top-edges went here and there and not in the hands (of the fielders),” added Dhawan.
Talking about Kohli’s decision to drop at no.4 position in order to accommodate two specialist openers both him and Rahul in the playing XI, Dhawan informed it was completely the skipper’s choice.
“See that is a captain’s choice, KL is batting well, he did well in the last series and he played really well and he played well today. I feel it is the captain’s choice where he wants to play and he has done amazing at No.3. Maybe I feel, Kohli will think about it to go at No.3 again,” pointed out Dhawan.
Dhawan also showered praise on David Warner, who smashed an unbeaten 128, and together with Finch stitched record 258 runs for the opening wicket to crush India.
“Of course David is a world-class player and yes, once he’s set he takes the game away, that’s his ability. We were trying our best to get hold of him, unfortunately we couldn’t,” Dhawan said.
“But as I said they outplayed us. David and Finch both played very well. We’re going to learn from it and come up with a better plan,” the left-handed batsman asserted.
PTI