Mahendra Singh Dhoni hailed an "exceptional" fielding display from his team after Friday's T20 international victory over Australia.
India skipper praises players after Melbourne triumph
India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hailed an "exceptional" fielding display from his team after Friday's Twenty20 international victory over Australia at the MCG.
In what has been a largely forgettable tour Down Under thus far, India picked up their first victory by eight wickets to square the two-match T20 series at 1-1.
There were four run outs in Australia's below-par 131 all out, a total India surpassed in the final over thanks to an unbeaten half-century from opener Gautam Gambhir (56 not out).
Speaking after the match, Dhoni said: "It is always good to be on the winning side, the boys were exceptional in the field, probably the best fielding I have seen. It will be hard to beat this effort.
"We are a side that relies a lot on a good start, not about the runs, a good, calm start is what we look for.
Consistent
"Praveen (Kumar) bowled with the new ball, forcing the openers to make mistakes and the spinners did well too, they went for a few runs in between but overall it was a good effort by the bowlers and equally by the top three batsmen," he added.
After guiding Australia to a 31-run victory in his first match as Twenty20 captain, Friday's defeat was hard to take for home skipper George Bailey.
The 29-year-old scored only three runs before he became Ravindra Jadeja's second run-out victim after the all-rounder had earlier accounted for Aaron Finch's dismissal.
"Losing is part and parcel of the game, we were well short with the bat tonight. Four run-outs was the big difference. We were clearly out-fielded," Bailey said.
"The two run outs of Finch and myself really slowed us up."
He added: "We have a great bunch of guys, we are trying to build onto something, we have put some game plan together but the key is to be consistent."
