India skipper MS Dhoni admitted that his team mates got complacent after polishing the top order of the West Indies, who nearly toppled India in the high-scoring first one-dayer here on Friday.
India set a massive 340-run target but had to toil hard to defend it before managing a 20-run win at Sabina Park. “Most of the guys thought that we have won the game when they were seven-wicket down but it was a mistake and hopefully we won’t repeat that. It was more close than we thought,” he said.
Speaking about Yuvraj Singh, who played a magnificent knock of 131, he said, “He has matured as a batsman in the last couple of years. We rely a lot on him. He gets big runs for us in the middle order.”
Dhoni said handing Ashish Nehra the ball in the closing stage was a gamble which paid off. “It was a gamble. We were thinking of giving that over to an off-spinner or a pacer. Finally we chose a pacer as the ball was getting reverse swing,” he said.
West Indies skipper Chris Gayle was not unhappy with his team even after the defeat and praised the youngsters. “It was a good effort. We batted well. Darren, who was making his debut, was also impressive. Shiv played a top innings at the top,” he said. Gayle confessed his batsmen failed to capitalise on the good start. “We came close and the effort can't be faulted for the way we went about it. I think that we had a good start (to the innings) and a couple of the top-order batsmen got good starts, which we should have capitalised on,” he said.
... contd.