A tired Sourav Ganguly said that the absence of Sachin Tendulkar was not the sole reason for India's early exit from the Champions Trophy and put down the team's defeat to Pakistan in the final group match to poor batting in general.
"We miss him (Tendulkar) but there are other batsmen to do the job. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be performing well in that area," the India captain said after going down to the traditional rivals by three wickets at Edgbaston on Sunday.
"It was thanks to our bowlers that we came as close as we did. They did their best to make up for batting failure," he added.
Ganguly lamented the obvious when he said his batsmen have been letting the team down for four months now.
"It's four months since our batsmen have not performed and it has hurt the team," said Ganguly.
"Our batsmen have kept failing in this period."
India were all out for 200 against Pakistan in a critical Group C clash, this despite Ganguly asserting it was a very good wicket to bat on.
"Actually, I was surprised at being asked to bat first -- I would have batted first if I had called correctly."
Ganguly said there was no moisture in the wicket and his batsmen just needed to apply themselves to take advantage of it.
He preferred not want to look far ahead and predict if the current team will be the nucleus, which should serve India in the 2007 World Cup, but said if the cricketers keep performing there is no reason why they shouldn't be around.
"They are not inexperienced and have performance to back their position in the team. If they keep performing there is no reason why they shouldn't be around.
"But in order to keep their places in the side, they need to be scoring runs."
Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer said it wasn't the kind of wicket where teams would be scoring only 200 runs and put it down to the pressure of an India-Pakistan game.
"It wasn't the kind of wicket where you score only 200 runs. But playing in front of packed galleries of fans with all that national fervour isn't easy.
"Sometimes when sitting in the dressing room, it isn't too easy to visualize what pressure is there in the middle."
There was pressure enough on the Pakistan batsmen to make a near mess of a small target before scraping home by three wickets and four balls to spare.
Pakistan put up a better team effort than India though it was Naved-ul-Hasan's bowling, and Yousuf Youhana's batting that hogged the limelight.
"Naved caught the eye because of the way he bowled against the Australians at Lord's on September 4. He is a lively bowler who swings it nicely.
"I thought we bowled particularly well against them in the first few overs. We didn't give them much width though there is always room for improvement."
Even though Pakistan has a good and varied bowling line-up, Woolmer was not willing to discount the West Indies' chances in the semi-final, which will be played at South Bowl on Wednesday.
"Any side, which has a batting line-up inclusive of Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Brian Lara can't be dismissed outright," said Woolmer.
