MS Dhoni blames drubbing on batting failures

Regarded as the team's core strength, the batting underperformed and it came as no surprise when India failed to put up a fight. Sanjjeev Karan Samyal reports.

India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni blamed the batsmen for the shocking debacle in England. Regarded as the team's core strength, the batting underperformed and it came as no surprise when India failed to put up a fight. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman have a combined tally of more than 100 Test hundreds, not to mention Virendrer Sehwag, but the team touched the 300-run mark only once. Dravid was an exception, scoring three centuries. "We never put par plus score on the board; we never scored anything over 300 runs, which is needed. The batting department did not perform to potential," said Dhoni.

Initially, lack of acclimitisation was blamed for poor form.

Injury woes
But that excuse also fell flat in the third and fourth Tests. The Indian skipper admitted his side was outplayed.

"It has been a challenge throughout the series. In the first two Tests we lost one bowler each (Zaheer and Harbhajan). That's again a big setback. And then we lost a batsman like Gambhir in the first Test and in this match because of injury. At the same time, we shouldn't take the credit away from this English side. I think overall they played very good cricket over the four Tests."

India suffered a dramatic collapse in the second session on Monday. He admitted his side panicked. "When you lose a set batsman, it sets panic the dressing room. We should have been able to stop this but were not able to do so."