Shane Warne

Durban: Defending a total of 101 was always going to be difficult, but the Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne almost pulled it off. But in the end it was too small a score in a do-or-die match and Warne blamed his top order.

The following are excerpts from the press conference

On the defending champions failing to make the semis

Disappointing, you reckon? Obviously it’s hugely disappointing. We have had our chances through the tournament, but unfortunately we were not good enough a couple of times. To get it down to the last game… to have to win that game with only 101 on the board was really disappointing. To give our guys credit, we gave absolutely everything we had. We showed a real fighting quality and a lot of character... It’s disappointing to be the defending champions and not be in the semi-finals. In the early part of the tournament we had to chase 120/130 a couple of times and got bowled out for 58 and 100. Our bowling, our field settings, our tactics have been as good as any team, if not the best. Unfortunately our batsmen didn’t fire. In the end that probably cost us dear.

Keeping Graeme Smith out in such an important match

We just decided to give Tyron Henderson a go. We thought he could make a big impact today with the bat… Unfortunately Graeme has not made as many runs at the top as he would have liked. So we thought Henderson’s batting could be dangerous and his bowling at the death would be good.

If the defending champions’ tag was a bit too hot to handle for the youngsters

I don’t think it was too hot to handle. There were just lot of expectations, and unfortunately they just didn’t perform. Last year we had two or three guys at the top of the order actually performing. Graeme Smith and Shane Watson were, of course, there, but even Swapnil (Asnodkar), (Ravindra) Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan performed. This year, Yusuf has been a little bit inconsistent. Jadeja, I thought, has matured and has been the one guy who can hold his head up with bat, ball and on the field. We tried Niraj Patel, we tried Abhishek Raut, but unfortunately they didn’t grabbed their chances. That has been a big disappointment for us really. There’s been no complain with our bowling… just our batting has been very disappointing. We will come out fighting again next year.

If he would be going for big names next year

I think one of our duties as international captains is to unearth as much young Indian talent as we possibly can. We did that last year with Swapnil, Jadeja, Yusuf, Siddharth Trivedi, Amit Singh, Munaf Patel… Hopefully we will unearth a couple of more Swapnils. We will give youngsters a go because I think if you keep putting those guys in pressure situations and giving them opportunities, the good players will come through.

His favourites

I think Chennai Super Kings is probably the best team in the competition and they are the favourites to win.