Dhoni refuses to blame batsmen for humiliating loss

VADODARA: Despite Indian batting crumbling like a house of cards against Australia in the fifth one-dayer, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Thursday not only refused to blame the batsmen for the defeat but also described them as the best line-up at his disposal.

India were reduced to 43 for five at one stage by the Australian bowlers before the entire team was rolled over for a paltry 148 in 39.4 overs.

"Sachin (Tendulkar), Sourav (Ganguly) and Rahul (Dravid), followed by Yuvraj (Singh), Robin (Uthappa) and me is the best order we have got," Dhoni said after the nine-wicket thrashing.

"If we get good starts then we can accelerate to five or six an over in the last 30 overs," he said.

Dhoni said nothing except toss went right for the Indian team at the Reliance stadium.

"Apart from the toss, nothing went right for us. We lost early wickets, did not have partnerships as we lost wickets at regular intervals. Sachin, in his 400th ODI outing, was the only one who batted beautifully apart from our last wicket pair (of Zaheer Khan and RP Singh)," he said.

The 25-year-old Ranchi-born wicketkeeper-batsman, however, said the wicket was difficult to bat on and around 220 runs would have been a good total for the team.

"It was certainly not a 300-plus wicket. A score of 220 would have been very difficult to chase as the ball was turning square. We did get some edges from the Australian batsmen but could not get wickets," said Dhoni who opted to start the bowling attack with off spinner Harbhajan Singh at one end.

The Indian captain heaped praised on Tendulkar's batting while refusing to comment on the lack of runs from another ex-captain Rahul Dravid.

"Sachin batted beautifully. He was dominating the bowling and it looked as if he was batting on some other wicket," he said but said 'no comments' when queried whether the form of Dravid was worrisome.

The Indian captain hailed young Aussie left arm swing bowler Mitchell Johnson's match-winning five-wicket haul, his maiden one in ODIs.

"He bowled well but when we bowled we could not get the breakthroughs," he said.

Dhoni, while agreeing that four months on the cricket road was a bit taxing, added that as professional cricketers it was expected of his team members.

"We went to Ireland, England and then South Africa before we came to India for this series. Conditions here are vastly different, hot and humid, and four months on the road is tough but we are professional cricketers and are supposed to cope up with this," he said.