Bengaluru, Feb 14: India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni spoke to the media after a 38- run victory against Australia in a warm-up game ahead of the ICC cricket World Cup 2011. He said that he was happy with the result of the game but thought that the biggest priority in the warm-up games was not always to win. Keeping his seamers and other players fresh for the main tournament was the key consideration.

Excerpts from the interaction

On winning the toss and batting first once again and on the performance of the spinners on what turned out to be a pitch tailor-made for them

Well of course [we’re happy], but you know we won’t look to get the same kind of wicket in the coming games. You have to win every toss because under pressure if the opposition has good spinners in their side they can really create problems and it would be really difficult to chase anything over 230-odd runs. Right now I can say I am really happy but overall I think the wicket, if it’s slightly turning left in the favour of the batsman, then you have a fair opportunity even if you lose the toss.

On Piyush Chawla’s bowling performance

If you have a leg-spinner that has a really good googly then he can really trouble the batsmen because nowadays what we [are seeing] is [when] the wrong one hits the pad, the umpires are giving it out. So that’s a definite big point for the left-arm spinner and the leggie - he is one bowler who is quite consistent with his line and length. He is not a big turner of the ball but the odd delivery turns and he has got a very good wrong one. So I think we were expecting him to bowl well and in this case he has done well which means it is good for the side. We have the headache and tension of selecting the best bowler and it’s always better if you have more options.

On whether it was tempting to bring in the seamers towards the end to give them some practice or if he just wanted to finish the game off

It was not only about winning the game because, I don’t know, my reading was when we lost quite a few early wickets, the Australians had also backed off because it is a warm-up game. Winning this game may be important to most of the sides but at the same time if you have players who have got niggles like we have got then the priority is not to win each and every game and especially this game warm-up to put in hundred percent effort. So that is why we were slightly on the back-foot when it came to using the seamers and the spinners were [anyway] doing [a] good job. We still had Yuvraj Singh who had quite a few overs left so I would have been inclined to go towards him rather than going after the fast bowlers because I feel their real task starts when we get into the tournament and play the first league game.

On effecting stumpings almost twice in an innings which is also a sign that the spinners are bowling well

It is. I think it’s quite a rarity in the ODI format - you don’t see keepers getting too many stumpings. Maybe the wickets are too placid or the spinners are not good enough but according to my opinion the wickets here are too placid. That’s one of the reasons why you don’t see too many stumpings right now and the batsmen are playing the spinners well. So it’s good to get a few stumpings and of course it’s an indication that the spinners are bowling really well.

On whether Zaheer Khan and Sachin Tendulkar are likely to play the next warm-up game against New Zealand

[About] Sachin [Tendulkar] [we are] hundred percent sure because you can make out [the crowd] really love Sachin and as far as Zaheer Khan is concerned, you will exactly see. Nothing serious, he has just got a very mild, you can say, groin strain. So as I said, we don’t really want to risk anything. We want players hundred percent fit for the first game.