Southampton, Sept 6: India lost the second match of the five-ODI series, a rain-shortened game, to receive another blow on what has been a nightmare tour so far. Skipper MS Dhoni, however, was hopeful of a turnaround in the remaining three games.

In a post-match media interaction, Dhoni spoke about the team’s performance and the option of playing a fifth bowler in the forthcoming games.

Excerpts:

On losing the match

It’s a tough day. I think we batted well to put close to 190 runs on the board but the first few overs, the first Powerplay, was very crucial. [In] the first five overs they got close to 55-60 odd runs and [the] first ten overs [they got] 100 runs; after that they didn’t really need to take any risks. The first ten overs were really crucial.

On whether he was frustrated by India’s performance

That is part of the game but not to forget everybody tried their best so that’s what we also did [sic]. Almost all the bowlers went for runs so it’s nothing to be too frustrated about. It’s a day when nothing really went our way.

On being pleased with the performance of some of the young batsmen

We have been able to put runs on the board, especially in the ODI series, so that’s a big positive for us and bit of improvement is needed in the bowling department and hopefully in the next three games we will be able to do that.

On the possibility of playing a fifth bowler in the upcoming matches

We have only specialist bowlers left, which means we will have to be a batter light, and it’s not something we are comfortable with. One of the reasons [is that] we have not done much with the five-bowler combination. Only when we had Irfan [Pathan] were we able to do that because we need that extra batsman. Most of our batsmen play aggressive cricket so at times they may get out also. So that’s just a [cushion] we need.

On coping with the pressure in the absence of senior players

Going through the games is very important but not going through the motions. You try to do things in a different way each and every game, try to come up [with] plans that may work; but I don’t think much has worked so far for us. Hopefully [we will have] a few more plans in the next game and hopefully it may work.