India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Sunday blamed his bowlers for conceding 20-odd extra runs and said they have to bowl better at death.

Dhoni said a target in the vicinity of 270 would have been achievable.

“I would have been happy with 270. That’s more like the score often you would like to chase, specially on a track like this. It was not a track that remained the same. It got slower and slower as the match progressed,” Dhoni said.

“We need to improve our death bowling to some extent and we need batsmen to contribute,” added the India captain, making it clear that he was not happy with the bowlers’ performance, especially towards the end.

“Thanks to Praveen and Bhajji that we came so close but that’s definitely a learning experience and we have batsmen in the side to bounce back,” added Dhoni.

Dwelling on India’s chase, Dhoni reckoned losing four quick wickets in the middle did the team in.

“What we wanted is to take the game till the end. I think 120 required off 16 or 17 overs with seven wickets in hand and with five overs of batting powerplay left is something we should have achieved. But frankly speaking, we lost four wickets in the powerplay and after that we were not really in the game,” Dhoni rued.

“Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar made the game so interesting. It was an overall contribution that really put us here,” he said.

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