I can't start hitting from first ball: Dhoni

East London:

Having overcome a lean patch with an unbeaten 58 and help his side score its third win in a row, Chennai captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said he is not the kind of batsman who start slogging from the word go.

Dhoni scored his fifty in the tournament and contributed in his team's 78-run win over Deccan Chargers here tonight.

"I was struggling when I was coming down the order. I can't start hitting from the very first ball. So I promoted myself but the credit goes to the openers who gave us a good start. We expected more than 175 and happy to get 180," Dhoni, adjudged Man-of-the-Match, said.

"They (Deccan team) rely a lot on Gibbs and Gilchrist and they have big hitters down the order. We needed to take early wickets and capitalized on that.

Dhoni though was not happy with the fielding of his team, who dropped many a catches and missed run out chances too. "We need to work on fielding. It's important in a low scoring match and batsman are doing, bowlers can do better," Dhoni said.

Gilchrist admitted that after losing three early wickets they had lost hopes of win.

"We were outplayed in all departments of the game. We did not bowled badly but they batted nicely. We were never in the chase after that start.

"We did hard work early in the tournament and got ourselves in good positions. All is not lost, we will work out and try to get back to winning ways," he said.