'Depends on the era of players'

A streaky performance from Pakistan's batsmen and a cautious knock from Virat Kohli ensured that India defeated Pakistan for the third consecutive time yesterday.

The two teams don't get to meet that often these days -- this was their third face-off in three years -- but whenever they do, India somehow seems to find a way to come out on top.

Since 2010, the teams have played each other 14 times with India winning on ten occasions. The trend wasn't the same in the past and it was something that skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni spoke on during the post-match press conference yesterday.

“You have to see the era of players, what kind of players are playing. If you compare the team of the 90s to our team, I am not saying our team was bad. But if you see the Pakistan team they had those all-rounders and bowlers who could bowl quick and at the same time they had the talent of bowling reverse-swing and that put pressure on our batsmen,” said Dhoni.

"I always felt Pakistan had a very strong side backed by talented players, who were maybe not very orthodox by the books. There were few batsmen who could read the game very well and bowlers who could exploit the conditions.

“If you see lately how the Indian team has started performing, it's almost the same. Still the war is the same, it's often about the Indian batsmen and the Pakistani fast bowlers or the spinners. It's just that our bowling has also improved. It's difficult to compare but I feel the era of players matter,” he further said.

With regards to yesterday's match, Dhoni praised the way Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh braved the Mohammad Amir-storm and took India close to victory.

“The conditions were tough and there was pressure with three wickets down. A lot of time people talk about the openers, but you have to consider down the order as well,” said Dhoni.

“The match was always within our grasp. But it's not like we were thinking 'okay, we have scored 84 and we will win easily'. We knew the conditions and saw the way the ball moved.

“In cricket you don't win a game depending on half the game. You only celebrate once you get the number of runs that you need or when you have bowled out the opposition,” he added.

Meanwhile, both Pakistan coach Waqar Younis and captain Shahid Afridi blamed Pakistan's batting for the defeat.

“We fought well with the ball, but the runs weren't enough. We were 30 to 40 runs short. The way we bowled, I thought the match would have been better if we had enough runs on the board,” said Younis, at the post-match press conference.

Afridi echoed Younis' sentiments during the post-match presentation.

“I think our batsmen have played enough cricket to know how to judge a wicket. We should have judged the wicket better,” he said.