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'Our backs are to the wall'

Indian skipper Rahul Dravid offered no excuses after his team's defeat to Bangladesh. He candidly admitted that his team's batting failed badly and that they were outplayed by Bangladesh.

  • By K.R. Nayar, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 23:37 May 3, 2009
  • Gulf News

  • Image Credit: AP
  • Mushfiqur Rahim (centre) is congratulated by members of the Indian team after he scored the winning run at Port-of-Spain.

Port of Spain, Trinidad: Indian skipper Rahul Dravid offered no excuses after his team's defeat to Bangladesh. He candidly admitted that his team's batting failed badly and that they were outplayed by Bangladesh.

Following are the excerpts from the press conference:

Gulf News: Must have been very disappointing to lose the first match?
Rahul Dravid: It is indeed very disappointing to come for the World Cup and lose the very first match.

So you regret losing this match?
I don't know whether I should regret but all that I can tell you is that we should have batted a little better. The ball seamed around a lot more than we expected.

It looked a good wicket to bat on but we lost a flurry of wickets towards the end. We fell short by 30-40 runs.

Do you think your team's batting collapsed because of their tight bowling?
You must give full credit to their bowlers. We had a good partnership between Sourav and Yuvraj, but the later order batsmen could not carry on the tempo.

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All in all we did not play well. Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal also came out and played some great shots and set them up. It was not going to be easy for them later on, but they got off to a great start.

Don't you think it was a blunder to bat first?
There was a bit of dampness in the wicket, but we thought it would go away quickly. It remained for a longer period than what we expected.

We also thought that if we bat first, it would help our spinners towards the end. So our plan was to score a big total and put pressure on the Bangladesh batsmen.

What did you tell your boys when your team was bowled out for 191 runs?
I told them to keep believing in themselves and go out and take some early wickets. Had we managed that, we could have put some pressure on them through our spinners.

Our plans went crashing when their opener came out and played some great shots and set them up for the victory.

So what is your next plan?
It is very clear. We have no other option but to win the next two matches comprehensively. We have our backs to the wall now."

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