India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni gave all the credit to the way the Sri Lankan bowlers stifled their scoring at the death overs, while defending the team's decision to send star batsman Yuvraj Singh at number four, in the final last night.
Dhoni felt 130 was a below-par total against a team like Sri Lanka, with players like Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, who can change the course of the game on their own.
“Our plan was to score as many runs as possible in the last four overs. We couldn't capitalise on that,” said the India captain at the post match press conference.
“You should also give credit to the Sri Lankan bowlers. They were looking for wide yorkers and all the balls were perfect wide yorkers.”
India were 61 in the eleventh over when Yuvraj came in to bat, with Virat Kohli batting fluently on 31. Dhoni said they felt that having a right-hand left-hand combination at that time would have been more ideal for the situation.
“What happened was that two right handed batsmen were batting at that point of time. So you want a left-right combination which makes it a little difficult for the bowler to execute their plans. That's the reason we had Yuvi at number four,” Dhoni said.
But that plan certainly did not work as Yuvraj failed to keep at par with Kohli and was unable to rotate the strike regularly. When Yuvraj departed in the nineteenth over, he had already consumed 21 deliveries, scoring a mere 11 and India were 119. But Dhoni defended his champion batsman by saying: “The thing is he was trying. That's the most you can do.”