Nagpur, March 13: Putting up a brave front after ending up on the losing side in a close match, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni backed teammate Ashish Nehra who was unable to stop the Proteas from getting past the line in the last over.

Dhoni admitted that he had the option of choosing between Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra but he decided on the latter as he thought that pace would be a better option.

With lessons to learn in all the departments, the India captain believes that the team can come up with the goods in a crunch game.

Excerpts from the post-match interview

On what was going through his mind during the last over

We just needed the bowlers to bowl at the right spot but not to forget that they are under tremendous pressure. I think they did really well to [defend] the amount of runs that were there in the last few overs. But if the batsmen play well and you are not bowling at the right spot, more often than not you get hit.

On choosing to bowl Ashish Nehra in the last over

Bhajji [Harbhajan Singh] was the only choice - he was bowling well. But I thought maybe it was better off to go with the seamer. I was wrong, maybe. But I thought maybe the seamer can do the job for us.

On whether Ashish Nehra’s unsuccessful last over had something to do with his long stretch without bowling

That can be the reason, but not to forget a few months back, for the past one and a half years, he has been our main bowler bowling [with] the new ball right till the end with the old ball. You know, [even] slog overs and the first or second Powerplay. So you have the belief in him and hopefully, [even though he failed in this game], maybe in a crunch game he would come good for us.

On India losing nine wickets for 29 runs in the last nine overs of their innings

[In the] second Powerplay what is important is you don’t play for the crowd, you play for your country. What is important is if you lose quite a few wickets, then you need to curb your innings. What you need to do is bat 50 overs and if we would have batted the 50 overs normally and scored 20 more runs [things would have been different]. So at times it happens you look for maybe 20 more runs and you end up getting maybe 40 less runs because you lose too many wickets

On whether 296 was a good score on the surface regardless of the batting collapse

I think it was. Initially we gave away a few runs and in between there was brilliant batting by some of the South African batsmen. But overall I think the performance was good. If we could have fielded a bit better we would have made the score look slightly bigger. But at the same time we are not a side which is known for fielding, so you can say we can improve only marginally, there wouldn’t be drastic improvement.

On the one lesson that India would learn from this game

As I said, you don’t play for the crowd. They always want you to hit sixes and fours but if you lose quite a few wickets in the Powerplay or in the overs to spare [then the scoring big becomes tough]. It is always better that batsmen play the full fifty overs - delay your slog a bit and get maybe a par score and don’t look for the extra 20 or 25 runs.