London: Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor were fast and furious — reminding Sunil Gavaskar of the West Indies attack from the mid-Seventies to the mid-Eighties — and, then, Dwayne Bravo made an impact with the ball too.

At the end of it all, at Lord’s on Friday night, defending champions India were big losers (seven wickets) in their opening World T20 Super Eight engagement.

Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni didn’t offer excuses, though, at his post-match session with the media.

The following are excerpts

Reflections on the match

You could consider it an off day... However, we fought and took it till the second-last over... We have our backs to the wall, but we do well in such situations... Having our backs to the wall brings the best out of us.

Whether 153 for seven was enough

It wasn’t... Wasn’t a par score... We needed 165-170... Still, we’d fancied our chance, especially after containing the West Indies in the first six overs... We also contained (Chris) Gayle.

Yuvraj Singh’s superb 67 (off 43 balls)

Thanks to him we got to the total we reached...

Change in batting order, specifically dropping himself to No.5

That’s because, unlike the earlier matches, we lost the first wicket quickly... That’s why (Suresh) Raina went at No.3... He would have in the earlier matches too, had we lost the first wicket early... Sometimes changes work, sometimes they don't... Raina had an off day.

Batsmen not having scored from as many as 51 balls

We’ll be looking at the dot balls... If we’d kept them down to 35-40 then at least 11 runs would have been added... In analysing the match, the dot balls will be taken into account.

Strike not being rotated

We didn’t, in the middle overs... Hopefully, we won’t make the same mistake in the next match (against England, on Sunday).

[Dhoni himself failed to rotate the strike, using 23 balls for just 11, one of the slowest T20 innings if the calculation is 10 or more runs.]

West Indies’ aggressive bowling

The wicket had bounce and they made use of it... Yes, they were aggressive.

The fielding

We aren’t the best fielding side (in the tournament) and can’t become one (overnight)... But, if you look at our XI, it’s the best fielding unit... The West Indies took some brilliant catches...

Whether optional training sessions have blunted the sharpness on the field

Look, one more day of fielding can’t make a difference... Don’t think optional nets matters.

Having come through the Super Eight via an easy group, while the West Indies were in the toughest one

But we didn’t take any match lightly...

Finally, Bravo’s knock

He batted brilliantly.