Mid-Day

Port of Spain, Trinidad, May 29: Skipper Rahul Dravid blamed poor fielding and batting in crunch situations for India’s humiliation at the hands of Brian Lara’s West Indies.

India, the world’s third-ranked ODI team, lost the five match series 1-4 after the Windies reeled off an amazing four consecutive victories.

The Windies won the fifth match by 19 runs at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain yesterday. They set India a target of 256 and bowled the visitors out for 236 in 48 overs, despite Virender Sehwag’s 95.

Dwayne Bravo was named man of the match for his quickfire 62 while Ramnaresh Sarwan was declared man of the series.

Out-fielded

After the match, Dravid said, “We didn’t play to potential. The West Indies out-fielded us after the first game. Some of the games were quite close, including today’s, and they made up really well in the field. That is a blow for us because we’ve prided ourselves on being a good fielding unit.

“Also, we have struggled to adapt while batting on these slow wickets. We didn’t get the extra 25-30 runs we needed to win games.”

Asked to pinpoint the worrying areas in fielding, Dravid said, “Some of the throwing from the deep was not as good as it should have been. Today, they took our arms on and got away with it. Actually, we have worked quite hard on our fielding, so it’s a big disappointment.”

Experience

Asked if the team felt the lack of experience in the batting line-up, the skipper said, “These are the same boys who gave us victories not so long ago. Saying now that they are not good enough is not right.

“We need to improve, particularly in our fielding. When you ask if we lacked experience, you have got to consider that when you look at bringing people back, they should make sure the fielding standards don’t drop, because that’s what is costing us games. It’s not as if we are a completely young side, there is a bit of experience too.”

Talking about yesterday’s loss, Dravid said Jerome Taylor’s three quick wickets in his second spell was the turning point of the match. “Sehwag batted really well, but Taylor changed the game.

The three wickets he took in his second spell was the turning point. We were not able to rotate the strike, and that put a bit of pressure on the lower order to go for big strokes.”

Brian Lara said India missed Sachin Tendulkar’s experience and influence, both on and off the field, and that made a big difference to their fortunes in the final analysis.