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Captain Rahul Dravid blames poor batting for India’s failure to reach the final of the DLF Cup One-day International (ODI) tournament and has told his players they need to stop the rot before the ICC Champions Trophy next month.

The dejected Indians left Malaysia with plenty to dwell on after throwing away a chance to beat Australia on Friday — their ninth loss in 10 matches to the world’s top team. It cost them a place in Sunday’s final against the West Indies.

“Except for the first match we did not bat well. We will have to individually and collectively think about it,” said Dravid, who admits he was one of the culprits in a series funded by the Indian cricket board. “It is important for all of us to be counted. I didn’t have a very good tournament. I would be the first one to put my hands up and say I should have performed much better in the tournament,” he said.

“Responsibility starts from the top. I need to bat better and that probably goes down the line. Everyone in the team has to look at how they played in the critical situations,” the skipper added.

Aside from Sachin Tendulkar, who scored an unbeaten century on his comeback from injury, and Dinesh Mongia in Friday’s match, none of India’s batsmen rose to the challenge when it mattered.

But Dravid denied India’s inability to make the final was anything to do with his captaincy, or strategy. “You need to bat well. I don’t think we are losing games because of poor strategy. If you are asked to chase 213 on a pretty good wicket, you need batsmen to score and get good partnerships. We just have to look into how to improve our batting.”

Dravid though was much happier with his bowlers and fielders, and said he would take those positives into their preparations for the Champions Trophy on home soil in October-November. “In losses like this we tend to forget the positives,” he said. “Our bowling and fielding was great. We will focus on our good bowling, we hope to repeat it in Champions Trophy.

“We will also focus on strengthening the fielding, we have really tried hard to improve it and have seen the improvement,” he said, adding, “But we have to bat a lot in the nets and spend time and practice for the Champions Trophy.” India open their Champions Trophy campaign against England on October 15 in Jaipur.
Source:The News