M Johnson Man of the Match

Vadodara, Oct 11:Despite Indian batting crumbling like house of cards against Australia in the fifth one-dayer, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni today not only refused to blame the batsmen for the defeat but also described them as the best line-up at his disposal.

India were reduced to 43 for five at one stage by the Australian bowlers before the entire team was rolled over for a paltry 148 in 39.4 overs.

"Sachin (Tendulkar), Sourav (Ganguly) and Rahul (Dravid), followed by Yuvraj (Singh), Robin (Uthappa) and me is the best order we have got," Dhoni said after the nine-wicket thrashing.

"If we get good starts then we can accelerate to five or six an over in the last 30 overs," he said.

Dhoni said nothing except toss went right for the Indian team at the Reliance stadium.

"Apart from the toss, nothing went right for us. We lost early wickets, did not have partnerships as we lost wickets at regular intervals. Sachin (in his 400th ODI outing) was the only one who batted beautifully apart from our last wicket pair (of Zaheer Khan and R P Singh)," he said.

The 25-year-old Ranchi-born wicketkeeper-batsman, however, said the wicket was difficult to bat on and around 220 runs would have been a good total for the team. (Agencies)