Adelaide: Australian skipper Michael Clarke on Sunday termed his side's fielding as "horrible" and said the bowlers failed to execute their skills in the death overs, after their four-wicket defeat to India in match four of the tri-series competition also involving Sri Lanka.
"We were probably 20 short with the bat. We were also horrible in the field. We were very sloppy. I don't think we executed our skills again at the death," Clarke said. Continue reading below
Clarke said everyone in the dressing room was pretty down at the defeat.
"Everyone is pretty down and disappointed. We thought we had a great opportunity to win that game. But yeah, look you learn from it. We saw the other side of it the other night against Sri Lanka when we got over the line.
"Tonight we didn't do so. We have got some time to work on things. It just shows we need to continue to try and improve and work hard. So yeah look it's disappointing but it's a game, isn't it where you sometimes need a kick up the backside to keep working hard and try and improve the next game. As I have said we need to be at our best to beat both Sri Lanka and India."
Clarke put down his side's poor fielding display to lack of concentration.
"I think it's concentration more than anything else. If you look at myself, Ricky Ponting and also Dave Warner, we fumbled a few balls tonight and we are better than that. You can't blame anyone else when you are not performing as well as you like.
"We just got to make sure we are concentrating and we are ready for every ball. It's a beautiful outfield, very flat. We have no excuse for our performance tonight. We were just not good enough."
