Mumbai, April 1 (IANS) India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Thursday attributed their shocking seven-wicket loss against West Indies to the dew factor saying that it made life difficult for spinners to grip the ball while defending which eventually made the difference between the two sides.
Batting first, India posted a competitive total of 192/2 in 20 overs, thanks to Virat Kohli’s 89.
In reply, a brave Windies side chased down the total posting 196/3 in 19.4 overs, thanks to Lendl Simmons’ 51-ball 83 and Johnson Charles’ 36-ball 52.
West Indies will now face England, who earlier beat New Zealand in the first semis on Wednesday, in the final at the Eden Gardens on April 3.
“You know, 30 more would have been really nice. But you have to realise it was half an hour early start, a bad toss to lose, so when they started batting the first few overs were fine, but after that there was a considerable amount of dew which meant the spinner couldn’t bowl how they would have liked to,” Dhoni said at the post-match press conference here at the Wankhede Stadium.
“It was coming on nicely and the ball was getting wet, so that was the difference between the first innings and second innings, the surface had some assistance for the spinners, it was gripping but in the second innings there wasn’t much in it for them,” he added.
“The only thing I’m disappointed about are the two no-balls. Other than that we tried our best and even if the conditions were not in favour of the spinners, whatever resources we had we tried our best in the game,” he said.
India made two changes to their side for the match. Batsmen Ajinkya Rahane and Manish Pandey came for Shikhar Dhawan who was dropped and Yuvraj Singh, who has been ruled out of the tournament due to injury.
Asked the reason behind dropping Dhawan, the skipper said that despite the left-handed batsman getting good starts he failed to convert it into big scores.
“If you see, Shikhar has been batting quite well but he’s not been able to convert. The thing with Rahane is he is someone who is quite calm and composed and he knows his responsibility in the team,” he said.
“This is the kind of innings that is expected of him. He isn’t someone who is going to bat like Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli. If you see, someone who is orthodox can give us that platform from where we can launch and score those extra 10-15 runs in the last few overs,” Dhoni said.
