Dhoni rues lack of partnerships after defeat

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni lamented the lack of partnerships after the six-wicket defeat at the hands of England in the one-off Twenty20 international.

Dhoni said one of the reasons for his side losing quick wickets was because they wanted to press on for 15-20 runs extra to make up for the lack of fifth bowler. © AFP

"Partnership is key, doesn't matter what format it is. Once you lose quick wickets, like we did after 12 overs, it doesn't help. You want to have at least five or six wickets in the slog overs," remarked Dhoni after his side lost nine wickets in the final eight overs as England pulled off a rather easy win.

India were 104 for one in the 13th over before being bowled out for 165, with three balls remaining.

Dhoni said one of the reasons for his side losing quick wickets was because they wanted to press on for 15-20 runs extra to make up for the lack of fifth bowler.

"Since we don't have the fifth bowler, we wanted to push a bit hard. We wanted to get those extra 15-20 runs and in the process we lost quick wickets.

"Once you lose quick wickets it becomes difficult. Virat (Kohli) hasn't bowled much in Twenty20 format and there were two part-time off-spinners."

Even though India struggled to get through the quota of fifth bowler between Kohli and Rohit Sharma, the four overs cost the visitors 48 runs, and Dhoni doesn't see the possibility of the team going with six batters and five bowlers in the forthcoming one-day series.

"In the last two years, we haven't played with five bowlers. I don't see it happening now. We don't want to play with a batter light (less)."

Two bright aspects for India were the batting of young opener Ajinkya Rahane who made 61 and Rahul Dravid who slammed three sixes in his knock of 31 runs.

"Rahane expressed himself. He didn't worry too much about the occasion. Whenever the ball was in his area, he scored most off them. He got over 50 runs which was critical for us."

"As for Dravid, he tends to take the leg to the ball in longer formats of the game but here he needed to take the leg out of the line of the ball. That's what you sometimes need to do in international cricket."