Batting order let us down against England: Indian captain MS Dhoni

MS Dhoni

Following India’s 1-3 loss in the 5-match Test series against England, MS Dhoni has blamed the batting order for the disappointing show and is hopeful that the youngsters will take lessons from it and perform better in the future. The fifth and final Test match of the Investec series ended in 3 days with the visitors losing by an innings and 244 runs after being all out for 94 in the second innings.

Lack of confidence

Conceding that the team ‘lost a lot of confidence’ over the course of the series, Dhoni, speaking during the post-match presentation ceremony, said: "We've lost a lot of confidence over the five-Test series, it is disappointing, there will be many experiences which the youngsters will learn - not too many have played Tests away from home and hopefully they can take that it into the future.”

The Indian top order, with the exception of Murali Vijay and Ajinkya Rahane who slacked off, as well, as the series progressed, showed no application whatsoever, with two of India’s stalwarts Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara scoring a total of 134 and 222 respectively. On the sorry show of the Indian batsmen, Dhoni said: “Right from the start, our batsmen never really performed, the lower order helped out... That blurred the performance of the top order, just scoring 150-60 runs will not put pressure on the home team.

“It's demanding but the wickets were good, nice pace and bounce - in the overcast conditions the fast bowlers get swing and the English bowlers were very consistent. The batting unit felt the pressure of not scoring, that's what you have to do in Test cricket, absorb pressure.”

Hope lessons are learnt

The 33-year-old also rubbished the school of thinking that the team could have done well with a practice match after the 2^nd or 3^rd match of the series. He said: “If we went with Rohit, the difficulty was who to leave out, whatever we could have done, we tried - a bit more application from the batsmen and it would have been better. The first couple of Test matches were good for us, so there is no point in playing practice games later in the series. A five-Test series was very demanding, you could see with Bhuvnesh, the effects on him, but we couldn't replace him.”

The Indian captain, who enjoyed what was easily his best Test series as a batsman, concluded by saying, “It's important to know where your off stump is, our playing XI didn't have many Tests, so we are lacking experience but until they play international cricket, they won't get that. It's important to play here, learn lessons and come back strong. The one-day format, we have some new players coming in and it's not as demanding. It's important we leave the Tests behind and enjoy the ODIs and T20."