India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni put the blame on his batsmen and their lack of consistency as they wrapped up their tours of South Africa and New Zealand without a win on Tuesday.
“Our bowling performance was really good. Still we can improve our batting,” he said as India turned a match-winning situation into a draw in the second Test against New Zealand in Wellington.
It gave New Zealand the two-Test series 1-0. South Africa also beat India 1-0 in December.
And it also continued a disappointing run away from the sub-continent for India who have gone 14 away Tests without a win since beating the West Indies in Roseau in June, 2011.
Dhoni said he was trying to see positives and felt that India showed they were improving, but not enough.
“Both the wickets (in New Zealand) turned out to be going towards the flatter side, especially this (Wellington) one, it just kept getting better and better for batting.
“So I think looking at that our bowling performance was really good,” he said, reflecting on New Zealand’s match-saving second innings of 680 for 8 declared.
“You may say we have not really capitalised on the kind of starts we got when it came to our batting department but still there’s plenty of improvements. I’ll take that and move on to the next series.
“Maybe all the batsmen have got one good innings in the last four Test matches. If we can improve that and make it two or three innings, then the situation of the team really improves.”
India return home with a tenuous grip on second place in the international Test cricket rankings, one point ahead of Australia.
New Zealand have edged up from eighth to seventh-equal with the West Indies.
