Barbados, July 2: Eager to dispel the Kensington Oval jinx, India made all the right moves hoping to win the second Test against West Indies on Day 5. But MS Dhoni and his team were disappointed as weather continued to play spoilsport in Barbados, denying the visitors a chance to go for the kill after some solid resistance by the West Indies batmen. Despite losing the better part of two days to rain, the game was evenly poised and looked good for a result until the last bit of the final session on Day 5. However, a light shower and bad light called off play one last time and the match resulted in a draw.

In a post-match media-conference, Dhoni expressed his disappointment and spoke about the series so far.

Excerpts:

On whether he was disappointed with the result of the match

To some extent yes, it would have been different [had play not been called off]. The last session was a well placed game. In 19-20 overs, with five wickets in hand, West Indies could get 100-odd runs; so it was evenly poised. I think my stand was ruined because of the rain. Once we came back, the ball got wet and it started coming on nicely to the bat, but still good enough. We got a couple of wickets but bad light spoiled our party.

On his decision to declare earlier than expected

280-odd runs was good enough, especially on this venue. The outfield is quite slow, which meant you could add another 30-odd runs [to the target] maybe. It was all about asking the batsmen to play some big shots because shot-making was not easy on this wicket, which meant you had to keep bowling good deliveries to get the batsmen out. I thought, maybe if it’s slightly within their touch, [the batsmen would be] going after the bowlers and that may give us the opportunity to grasp a wicket.

On whether it was difficult to bat first on this wicket

There was a fair bit of moisture in the wicket. Their bowlers bowled well but our batsmen batted well. If we were bowling, we would have bowled maybe slightly off[…], made the batsmen play most of the series and tried to use the slight advantage that was there. We did good to put runs on the board and I think the bowlers throughout the series have done really well. Even if some of them [have] not got the wickets, they have put pressure on the batsmen and made it a bit tough to score runs.

On Ishant Sharma

He has been great, groomed under Zaheer Khan. Now he is our main strike bowler in the absence of Zaheer Khan. He has taken up the responsibility and is bowling really well so it’s very good for the Indian cricket team.

On the last match at Dominica

You have to take it match by match [and] not think about whether you are one-up in the series or not. Look at the venue, look how exactly the wicket may be, play the 11 that may suit the particular venue and play session by session and take it as it comes.