Antigua, June 13: A disappointed Suresh Raina spoke to the media in a post–match interaction after India lost to the West Indies by a huge margin of 103 runs in the fourth ODI. The Indian skipper was all praise for his bowlers and admitted that the side’s batting needed to improve with partnerships being key.
Excerpts from the interaction:
On the Indian batting
We didn’t bat very well but credit goes to West Indies - they really batted very well. It is always disappointing when you are on the losing side; credit goes to West Indies, they batted really well, they bowled really well. We didn’t bat well actually to be honest.
On losing wickets in a heap
I think our shot selection was very wrong. We kept losing wickets; we especially didn’t have partnership in between. Rohit [Sharma] was there but me and Yusuf [Pathan], we got out at that particular time. But credit goes to West Indies; [they] batted really well.
On West Indies’ lower middle order posing a problem for India in the last two matches
I know, but they are batting really well, especially in the batting Powerplay. [Amit] Mishra bowled really well and [Ravichandran] Ashwin came and gave us [the wicket of] [Kieron] Pollard; he was batting really well. We were expecting 260-265 [runs] but thanks to Ash [R Ashwin,] - he came and he gave us the big breakthrough. And Ishant [Sharma] and PK [Praveen Kumar] bowled really well too.
On whether the side were too complacent today
I think we didn’t bat well today. Like I said, it is very important, especially when you are chasing 240-245 [runs, that the] batsmen be there. When you are playing with four bowlers, it is important to just look to bat in partnerships. I hope we will do well in the next game.
