India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni once again came hard on his bowlers for their lacklustre display in the ongoing cricket tri-series here and said the bowling department need to improve their performance by leaps and bounds in his side desire to be the numero uno ODI team.
Dhoni praised the batters of his team for their good showing but asked his bowlers to pull up their socks in India want to be consistent this year.
“If we want to be in the number one spot, if we want to be consistent then we need to improve our performance in all departments, especially bowling. I want the bowlers to deliver when needed,” Dhoni said.
The Indian bowlers misery at the death continued as they gave away 88 runs in the last 10 overs to see Bangladesh pile up a huge 296 for six in their allotted 50 overs.
“We need to improve our performance by 50 per cent. I know that would be tough for the boys but that’s what is international cricket all about,” he said.
The Indian skipper said although they lost three crucial wickets in Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh early, they were always in control of the game.
“I was never really worried as we had the second powerplay in hand. We were never really short of runs. We were always in reach of the target. So I and Virat decided to build up a partnership to lay the foundation and the plan worked,” Dhoni said.
Meanwhile, his counterpart Shakib Al Hasan blamed his bowlers for the loss especially after posting 296 on the board.
“We knew there gonna be dew but we knew it was a good batting track so we had to bat first.
“Consistently we are getting runs and its a plus point for us. Hopefully, we will try to bowl a bit better in the coming matches,” Shakib said.
He also praised Dhoni and young Virat Kohli for setting the platform for India’s victory with a 152-run fourth-wicket stand.
“When we got the early wickets, we thought we got a chance but they (Dhoni and Kohli) got a very good partnership in the middle overs and played sensibly. All credit goes to India,” Shakib said.
