MS Dhoni blames 'true batting wicket' for South African batting onslaught at Wankhede

Dhoni felt that the South Africans exploited the batting surface at the Wankhede to the fullest

Indian ODI skipper MS Dhoni feels the pitch at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai was to blame for South Africa’s record-breaking score during the fifth and final ODI on Sunday, ESPNCricinfo. The 34-year-old refused to blame the bowlers and defended himself over the way he tried to prevent the scoring from escalating.

Those efforts went in vain however as South Africa plundered the Indian bowling attack, scoring 438 after winning the toss and deciding to bat first. The visitors went on to win the match by 214 runs and thereby the series 3-2, handing South Africa their first-ever bilateral series win in India.

The bowlers, especially the fast bowling duo of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohit Sharma, came is for harsh criticism from various quarters, with the former conceding more than 100 runs in his 10 overs. Dhoni admitted that the faster bowlers could have extracted more bounce from the pitch but added that the wicket was ideal for batting and believes that India simply had a bad day at the office.

"If you see the wicket, it was a true batting wicket. There was no turn on offer for the spinners," Dhoni said. "Our fast bowlers yes, they can swing the ball but when it's flat they are not the ones who can push the batsmen on to the backfoot. Even if we have bowlers who bowl quick, they don't get the same amount of bounce from the same areas, as we don't hit the deck as hard.”

The tone of the match was set early on with Hashim Amla blazing away to a quick 23 before throwing away his wicket. The dismissal though paved the way for Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis to share a 154-run partnership for the second wicket. It was followed by a 164-run stand between Du Plessis and De Villiers that took the South African total past the 350-run mark all but sealing the match in favour of the visitors.

With each and every bowler used conceding more than six runs an over, Dhoni admitted that he had run out of options once the South Africans got going.

"Our strength is entirely different and if you see this wicket, all our bowlers as a unit, you very rarely see everybody going for runs - your fast bowler has gone for runs, your spinners have gone for runs. That was the reason, once the partnership happened and once they looked to accelerate, it was very difficult for us to stop boundaries,” he said.

The skipper, however, defended the way he handled the situation under the circumstances as he felt he had done everything possible to contain the South Africans.

"Almost all the strategies were used - from the fast bowlers to yorkers, to cramping the batsmen, to using the short-pitched deliveries. The same was with the spinners - you tried cramping them up, bowling wide. But there are days when it doesn't work. Also, when the wicket is so true and you have that kind of a partnership, it becomes very difficult to stop the opposition. It has happened in cricket, it keeps happening,” he said.

Dhoni is hopeful that should a similar situation arise in the future with the opposition staging a huge partnership early on, India would be able to contain the score to within a chasable range.

“What happens is that if you face a similar scenario the next time you have to make sure that you don't let the opposition score so many runs. Something that you can look to chase is something that's very important to stop the opposition at and taking a few catches may help," Dhoni said.