After creating a flutter by claiming that India were not "mentally prepared" for the pre-World Cup warm-up matches, cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Tuesday said his comments were misconstrued and he did not imply that the team was battling fatigue.
"It was not fatigue at all. It is the mental preparation level...to be in the same scenario...to be 100 per cent for a (warm-up) game," Dhoni clarified ahead of the second warm-up match against New Zealand on Wednesday.
"We are more used to prepare for a game 100 per cent and all of a sudden you have to prepare for a warm-up game which I have not played a lot, right from the start of my career from school cricket or district," he explained.
"It was a different scenario and you have to prepare differently. That was the only difference and it had nothing to do with fatigue," he added.
Dhoni, after the 31-run win over Australia in the first warm-up, had raised quite a few eyebrows by saying, "the mindset was not really there. Mentally we were not ready, that's one of the reasons we couldn't bat well."
But on Tuesday, Dhoni said even in a practice match, the competitive streak takes over once the players hit the ground.
"The heart rate goes up a bit in the practice game. You want to score runs irrespective of the fact that it is a practice game," he said.
"In the net session you don't get to know whether a thickish outside edge carries to the slip or goes to the boundary. In a match, it's an ideal reflection and you see exactly where the ball goes," he added.
