Mumbai, Mar 13: Canadian skipper Ashish Bagai today blamed his team's shoddy bowling and fielding for the 97-run defeat to New Zealand in a Group A match of the cricket World Cup here today.
"If there was going to be help for the seamers, it would have been in the first hour. We bowled too short, too wide. They put the team under pressure. We didn't bowl in the right areas," said Bagai, who top-scored for his team with a valiant 84 off 87 balls with the help of 10 fours.
"The fielding was probably the worst we had in a long time. We dropped catches. Our ground fielding was also poor. It was a collective poor fielding effort," said the stumper.
Bagai said rival skipper Ross Taylor's whirlwind knock of 74 off just 44 balls was crucial to New Zealand nearly touching 300.
"We were in the game for about 35 overs. Ross changed the game. From a score of 290 (that they looked like getting) they went on to get 360. Ross took away the game in the middle overs. He is a quality player," he said.
"Chasing 360 was difficult. (We) lost a couple of early wickets. We had a decent partnership but never kept up (with the asking rate)," Bagai said.
"We tried to get run a ball as we had some guys (down the order) could hit the ball. The last chance was to have ten an over towards the end. That was our intention. They took the pace off the ball. It was difficult to score," he added. PTI
