MS Dhoni blames drubbing on batting failures

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."

One man army in Indian Cricket team

London, Aug 22: India’s lone star in the dismal series, Rahul Dravid was adjudged the Man-of-the-Series by the opposition coach Andrew Flower for his outstanding batting performance. With 461 runs from the four Tests including three centuries, Dravid was the only Indian batsman to perform consistently in what has been a gruelling Test series for India.

Dravid spoke to the media about his batting and India’s performance in the series in the post-match presentation.

Excerpts from his media interview:

On the commendation from the opposition coach Andrew Flower

I would just like to thank the England team and firstly congratulate them; they deservedly are the No. 1 side in the world at the moment. They played really well in the series and they outplayed us.

On whether he was surprised at the way the series went and whether it was tougher than expected

We did expect a tough series. England have been playing some great cricket over the last two-and-a-half years; we thought we’d play a little bit better than we did over the last four Test matches. That was a bit disappointing but there is a lot to learn and there are things that we can take back from this series.

On whether he could pinpoint the reason behind the disappointing series

This might take half an hour [laughs].

On his performance and whether he had any concerns coming into the series

At this stage in my career, you want to be contributing. I wasn’t worried but definitely you want to be making contributions at this stage in your career; you know there are young players waiting in the wings so you want to be making important contributions to your side. So yes, I did want to have a big series in the West Indies and here. The cricket that I played in West Indies definitely did help me. I came here with a bit of confidence, started well and touchwood things went well for me. Obviously it’s a bittersweet feeling.

On whether he was happy to be scoring runs in the situations that he did

It gives you a certain sense of personal satisfaction but also I know we could have played a lot better cricket than we did and we have played better in England so there’s that sense of disappointment. This England attack was probably one of the better attacks that I have played in my career. I have been around a long time and I think they have got all their bases covered; they have got good fast bowlers, they have got height and they swing the ball, they’ve got a class spinner - so they have got everything at this moment, they are playing some good cricket

On whether one can expect to see him play Test cricket in England again

One series at time, one series at time.