It was a mental battle that we lost: Dhoni

India fell short by just three runs to Australia's score 350 despite a gallant effort by Sachin Tendulkar who stroked a magnificent 175-run knock last night.

Dhoni said it was the mental battle that India lost after the hosts came so near to Australia's score of 350 runs.

''You work so hard to get to a well, but then you have to drink the water yourself,'' he said. ''We came very close, but the one last effort that we needed as a team we couldn't put in. ''I don't think it was the talent part. I think it was the mental part, where you know you can play a big shot and you back yourself to do that. ''At times you just go through the motions, you don't know if such a shot is needed or not,'' the 28-year-old asserted.

The skipper also admitted that the dropped catches by Indian fielders and their lacklusture bowling display was another reason why Australia managed to score that many runs.

Australian opener Shaun Marsh, who struck his maiden century yesterday, was dropped twice - first on 29 by Dhoni and then on 51 by Virender Sehwag, while Shane Watson was also given a lease of life.

''We dropped three catches. One of them was tough. We lost too many wickets in the middle order. Myself, Gauti (Gautam Gambhir), Yuvraj (Singh), we got out pretty quickly. ''We could have done better. Though it was a very good track to bat, you still need a serious effort to get close to 350. If we had stopped them to 330 or 325, we would have had a better chance. ''I am not saying they could have kept them to 270, but even if they could have kept them down to 320, it would have been a completely different game. On these wickets, when there is no seam or swing, experience comes in,'' he added.

Despite a flurry of wickets in the final few overs, Dhoni said the team was still optimistic that Praveen Kumar could pull it off for India before he ran himself out.

Tendulkar had taken India within touching distance to victory but fell to take the team home and was out when the hosts needed 19 runs off 17 balls.

''Till the last wicket fell, we had hope. Of course it was disheartening. He (Tendulkar) made such a big effort. Such a big score. He was the one man who kept us in the game. We would have loved to see him hit the winning runs. But that was not to be,'' Dhoni said.

-- (UNI) -- 06SPD14.xml

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