Batting failure, lack of adaptability did us in: Dhoni

 Battered in just two and a half days, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni today said the inability to quickly adapt to new conditions and the flop show of his batsmen were the reasons behind his team's series defeat against Australia.

"We have not performed well throughout this series. In this particular Test, David Warner played really well and took the game away from us. We could only say that the batting made the difference. We could have scored enough runs in the second innings. The failure in the batting line-up is something that is hurting us," said Dhoni at the post-match presentation ceremony.

"It has been a tough series. We have not batted to the kind of potential we have. We definitely look to do well in the batting department in Adelaide (venue for the fourth Test). Our bowlers have shown that they are capable of taking wickets, it's just that we need to put some runs on the board.

Dhoni said his players have not been able to adapt to conditions quickly in the last two overseas series and that has taken a toll on the performance.

"Talking about the last couple of series including this, we have not adapted really well or too quickly with the conditions. We know that the conditions are quite different to what prevails in the sub-continent.

"When you come to Australia, you look for pace and bounce, in England you look at swing and in the same way, when you come to sub-continent, you look at turn and bounce for spinners. It's just that we have not adapted to the conditions well," said Dhoni as the hosts took an invincible 3-0 lead in the four-match series.

India's famed batting line-up consisting of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag yet again came a cropper in this Test at the dreaded WACA pitch but Dhoni defended the seniors, saying their experiences had bailed the team out of crises on a number of occasions.

"Not really (seniors not performing to their reputation), it's just that in some of the innings or series, you don't score. It's the back-to-back abroad series and you can say that they have not performed well but they have the experience and it really counts, we have seen that on number of occassions. Hopefully, they will come back strong (in the next Test)," he said.

Dhoni, however, had words of praise for miidle-order batsman Virat Kohli and young pace sensation Umesh Yadav.

Kohli slammed an impressive 75 under pressure in the second innings while Yadav took five wickets in an exceptional spell of sustained hostile bowling in Australia's first innings.
"That's the big positive for the team. If you talk about the batting, Virat batted really well in both the innings of this Test match. Not to forget there was lot of pressure on him as another talented batsman Rohit Sharma is waiting at the bench, so that's means he constantly pushing Virat, good to see him perform under pressure.

"Yadav is a very good bowler, someone who is capable of taking wickets," he added.