JOIN USA subdued India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni felt if any of his batsman had stuck around for 15 more minutes, they could have ended on a winning note.
Hardik Pandya had taken the match to wire before undoing his hard work by playing a poor shot. Dhoni felt Pandya could have finished the match.
“The option is always there. You have to target who are the bowlers you want to hit. In these situations, even the last ball counts. It always teaches you a lot. Maybe if that shot had gone over point or for a boundary, it would have been different. It will be harsh on him but he will slowly learn,” Dhoni said.
“It was a par score. The reason being that any of the batsmen had batted 15 minutes more we could have won the game. The bowlers did well to bring us back into the game. Initially it was slightly difficult to contain their batsmen, not to mention that we dropped two catches off Williamson. That had a bearing. Overall I was happy with 240-245 because I felt that was something we could have achieved.”
Dhoni said losing wickets regularly made his job tougher. “I wanted to play a few more strokes. But it is not easy when you lose wickets from the other end. You have to build partnerships when that happens,” he said.
“The pitch got slower as the game progressed. I thought it was better to bat on during the day.”
Kane Williamson, who stroked a century in a winning cause to win the man of the match award, was delighted by the improvement shown by his side. It was New Zealand’s first win in the series. “It was a great game really, it is certainly nice to come out a winning side especially in close games. It was nice to get a win but the best part was to show some improvement from the previous game,” Williamson said.