MS Dhoni admitted that the last four overs of India’s batting made the difference to their fortunes in the World T20 final even as he defended Yuvraj Singh who was scratchy during that phase.
“I think so,” he began during his post-match comments. “...The reason being, the last four overs are a stage when we really want to score as many as you can and that was an area where we couldn’t capitalise. At the same time you have to give credit to the Sri Lankan bowlers. I think they executed their plans brilliantly. They were looking for wide yorkers and all the balls were perfect. I think they only bowled one wide or something. Other than that they were right on the mark, which made it more difficult for our batsmen to score freely,” he reasoned after Sri Lanka defeated India by six wickets here on Sunday.
The Indian skipper, however, refused to blame Yuvraj for India losing the momentum towards the end of their innings. “It’s a team thing, let’s not talk about individuals,” said while refusing to speculate on the left-hander’s future.
Dhoni was asked if he was disappointed with Yuvraj’s performance and what would he have to say about fans’ anger.
“I can tell you one thing, you talk about the anger of the fans and all, (but) you know it’s always the individual who is more disappointed than the fans. As a player, you go through more because you have your expectations and everything else. Yes fans get angry but you should also think about the individual. Nobody wants to really play bad cricket. In front of 40,000 people you don’t really want to drop a catch or misfield. It’s part and parcel of the game. And we have seen it happens to some of the international athletes, not just cricketers. Yuvi tried his best, it was an off day for him. At the same time, it’s not easy for a batsman to go out there and start slogging.”
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