September 27, 2009 7:01 PM

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Dhoni puts blame on bowlers for loss against Pakistan

India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has held the lackluster bowling display responsible for his side's humiliating 54-run defeat at the hands of arch-rivals Pakistan in their Champions Trophy opener. "I was feeling not one bowler short but three bowlers short. It was tough to set field for them," stated Dhoni India's frontline bowlers, except for Ishant Sharma, went for huge runs.The fourth-wicket Pakistani pair of Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Yousuf pulverised the Indian bowling during their record 206-run stand. Whatever field you gave them, it didn't work. You can give the field but can't really bowl for anyone. We bowled very short and gave away a lot of runs towards backward point region. Our bowlers had boweld on bouncy wickets (in the lead-up to the game) and suddenly had to bowl on a track where they needed to bowl up. They didn't adjust," Dhoni said.Pakistan, at one stage, were tottering at 65 for 3, but the Indian captain said the duo of Malik and Yousuf could capitalise between the 13th and 42nd over mainly due to the listless perfomance of his bowlers. "We gave away too many runs. The shots were going in the area when there was no field. It was really tough out there. "I brought part-timers from the two ends as I have seen when you bring a part-timer with Harbhajan Singh, the batsmen usually see off Bhajji and milk the other bowler," Dhoni said."Besides, I didn't want a situation where a part-timer is brought on after the 40th over," he said. Asked why Sachin Tendulkar's services were not utilised when the Pakistani batsmen were taking his regular bowlers for a ride, he said, "Tendulkar has a shoulder injury and he can't consistently bowl. He is our main batsman and we don't want him injured."Gautam Gambhir (57) and veteran Rahul Dravid (76) were India's mainstay during their run chase but incidentally both the batsmen fell prey to run outs and Dhoni said it eventually turned out to be critical for his side. The skipper also lamented the loss of Yuvraj Singh as a bowler rather than a batsman.

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