Dhoni hails team for exceptional fielding

Melbourne, Feb 3 (IBNS) Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Friday hailed the team's "exceptional" fielding as India finally tasted win, beating Australia by eight wickets in the second Twenty20 international at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

"It is always good to be on the winning side, the boys were exception in the field, probably the best fielding I have seen. It will be hard to beat this effort," Dhoni said after the match at the MCG.

"We are a side that relies a lot on a good start, not about the runs, a good, calm start is what we look for. Praveen bowled with the new ball, forcing the openers to make mistakes and the spinners did well too, they went for a few runs in between but overall it was a good effort by the bowlers and equally by the top three batsmen," he added.

Australia captain George Bailey admitted that his side was completely out-fielded and the four run-outs made all the difference in the match.

"It wasn´t as close as it looked. Losing is part and parcel of the game, we were well short with the bat tonight. Four run-outs was the big difference. We were clearly out-fielded," Bailey said.

Bailey said they were trying to build a new team keeping in mind the Twenty20 World Cup later this year. He said the team has to be more consistent to emerge as a dominant side in this format of the game.

"We have a great bunch of guys, we are trying to build onto something, we have put some game plan together but the key is to be consistent," he said.

Indian allrounder Ravindra Jadeja, who was adjudged the Man of the Match, said the skipper asked him to believe in himself.

"It is a pleasure to play for India, it is a very good achievement for me. Mahi (Dhoni) Bhai always told me to have believe in myself and I too tried to play my natural game," he said.