India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday admitted that his execution in the last ball of the last over led to his side’s one-run loss against the West Indies. But the captain sought to dwell on the positives from the nerve-wrecking Twenty20 International match.
“It was an amazing game. We couldn’t have expected more from the batting unit. The last ball, the thinking was right but the execution was wrong. Everything is judged by execution,” Dhoni said after the match.
Chasing 246 for a win, India ended their run chase at 244 for 4.
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India needed two runs off the final ball to win the match but Dhoni failed to get those runs as he was caught by Marlon Samuels. India thus failed to notch up the highest ever successful run chase in T20 Internationals.
“We did most things right. Whenever there was a partnership, we kept the asking rate at just 12. I felt Rahul was outstanding throughout. The others too were superb because it’s not always easy to chase down 250. A win would have been perfect, but there were so many things we did right today,” Dhoni, who scored 43 off 25 balls, added.
West Indies captain Carlos Brathwaite said that he gave the go-ahead to Bravo’s plan to bowl a slower ball to Dhoni.
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“When Bravo said he was bowling a slower ball at the end, I told him that he had my backing. But in my mind I was thinking ‘really?’ We never do things easy, but we held our nerve. We couldn’t quite tell who the home team was. It was a great game of cricket,” he said.
Dwayne Bravo said, “With nine runs to go, I said we didn’t have anything to lose. I’d like to test my skills in these kinds of situations.”
“We know what MS [Dhoni] can do. He can finish off the game with one hit. I wanted to ensure the first ball didn’t go for a boundary. I wanted to keep my composure and back my skills with the two balls: the slower one and the Yorker.”