We had a great chance to pull off a win: Dhoni

“You can say that,” said Dhoni when asked if he felt the team’s fate was twisted. “A lot of things have gone wrong for us. I guess this (rain intervention) was one thing left that had to go against us. It would have been nice (to win) but again we can’t really control these things, right from toss to weather. So, whatever comes our way, we’ll accept it with an open heart. Let’s see, hopefully in the next four matches things will be different,” he remarked.

Perhaps for the first time on the tour, Indian batting looked to come into its own after being inserted by England. “Well, I would think so. But we were a few runs short in this match in the sense that we lost Rohit and we were not really able to cash in on during the slog overs. We wanted to make sure that we get as many runs as possible without taking too many risks and that’s the reason we delayed the batting power play also,” he pointed out.

Dhoni agreed that India had better chance of winning the match. “You can say that to some extent. The last target England were set according to the D/L method was close to 180, and with 12 overs to go and 130-odd runs needed, it could have been slightly difficult. But not to forget that there were still those overs from part-timers that could have been crucial. It was certainly a difficult target to achieve especially because the first seven overs we bowled really well,” he offered.

However, England captain Alastair Cook felt his side had a chance to win. “You never know what's going to happen. It was a good wicket, a big oval and the outfield was quick. The target was gettable.

“Sometimes you need to give credit to the way they played. Parthiv Patel specially batted very well,” said Cook.

Asked to comment on former England skipper-turned-commentator Nasser Hussain comparing some of the Indian fielders to donkeys on the field, Dhoni said: “That’s his view and I think he is paid to give his view. We will stick to what we are supposed to do and that’s to play cricket. We can’t do much about what one says or not... It’s their views and we can’t say much about those views.”