London: India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni today gave an open-ended reply to a query if he is ready to quit captaincy after another Test debacle on foreign soil having lost the current series 1-3 to England, here today.
To a question that if he is contemplating resignation, Dhoni replied,”You will have to wait and watch to find out whether I am strong enough to cope with this loss or not.
But has he done enough as India's Test captain, Dhoni gave a curt one-line reply, “May be, yes.”
But after his batsmen failed in five consecutive innings, he did not mince words while assessing the poor show in the last three Test matches.
“It's a reflection of the batting order that has not done well,” said Dhoni after the match had ended in less than three days.
“Murali Vijay has done well but right from the first Test we have not been able to get a good opening partnership. Cheteshwar Pujara was early to the middle because of that in the 3rd or 4th over itself in every innings. It kept exposing our number three batsman and Virat Kohli went through a lean patch,” Dhoni explained.
The skipper said that once a team plays with six batsmen, it's difficult to lose too many wickets upfront.
“If you are playing with six batsmen, including the keeper it makes it a bit tough if you lose that many wickets upfront. When the lower order scored runs we made 300-plus totals and once they too got out cheaply then we struggled to put runs on the board,” he said.
Dhoni didn't make any bones about the fact that lack of resistance was very disappointing.
“Yes, we are disappointed that we couldn't offer any fight in the last three Test matches.
Hopefully, the batsmen will take positive out of this defeat when they come back here, all of them are young and good enough to come back here, and do better” he added, hoping for better times for the Indian batting line-up.
