'We Did Not Deserve The Cup'

After restricting Sri Lanka to 254 for six, India were all out for 185 in43.3 overs. The defeat left them with just one win from three games in Group 'B'and only a miraculous win by Bermuda over Bangladesh tomorrow would see themthrough to the next stage.

"The target was gettable. I am disappointed with the top order. We hadan extra batsman but we lost wickets at regular intervals. We needed one bigpartnership but we did not get that," the skipper said.

"I don't think it was a wrong decision to field first. There wassomething in the wicket early on. It was the right decision, we bowled quitewell.

"We did not have luck upfront as the ball beat the bats a few times, hitthe pads a few times."

Dravid, however, backed his teammates even while being humble enough toaccept the responsibility for the team's disastrous performance.

"We definitely do take the responsibility. I am not sitting here andtrying to shirk responsibility," he said.

"I am the first one to stand up and say that we should have done better,and it starts with me. I am not trying to put the responsibility onanyone," Dravid said.

"Some of these guys have had success before as well. It's a question of,maybe the guys going back and looking at their performances, how they performedin the important and critical games."

The Karnataka batsman did not expect fans back home to show extreme reactionto the team's below par display.

"I hope the players wouldn't be under any physical danger. I don'texpect that to be the case. I am sure people will be disappointed but there isnobody more disappointed than the players themselves," he said.

"It is very emotional moment. People will be disappointed, fair enough.They have invested a lot of hope in this team and we haven't delivered.

"But I just hope that no one is in any physical danger. We have to thinkabout it rationally.

"I guess there is always a lot of emotion that gets involved in allthese things."

Dravid also said it was up to the selectors to decide on his future ascaptain.

"I was appointed captain till the World Cup. So I am not even thecaptain at this point of time. So it's not my decision to make," he said.

He did not want to comment if the team would get a real shake-up followingthe World Cup debacle.

"I guess there is a month now and obviously the people who make thedecisions will have to sit down and think about it and see what they feel is thebest way to take things forward."

Comparing the previous and current World Cups, Dravid said the Caribbeanedition allowed little scope for bouncing back from defeats.

"The way the tournament is structured, you have one banana skin game andyou can be out of the tournament quite quickly," he said.

"In 2003, we started slowly but had enough games to pull ourselves back.This time we did not have that, that's where we fell I suppose.

"In a tournament like this, you have one bad day and you could in bigtrouble. And that's what happened to both India and Pakistan."

The tournament format apart, Dravid felt the team also failed to adapt to theconditions in the Caribbean unlike in South Africa four years ago.

"I thought we batted a lot better in the last World Cup. We got somegood scores and chased some good scores.

"I think we just adapted better to those conditions in the last WorldCup than we did here."

Dravid said India has not done as well in one-dayers as in Tests in recenttimes.

"We have done well in the Test matches here (during last year's visit).Yes, we haven't done well in the one-dayers in the last couple of series.

"It just hasn't worked out for us. We, as batsmen, have just no beenable to adapt to these wickets."

PTI