AGENCIES

India coach Rahul Dravid admitted his side were comprehensively outplayed by a Jos Buttler-inspired England in Adelaide after they crashed out of the Twenty20 World Cup in humiliating fashion on Thursday.

Buttler, with 80, and Alex Hales, who scored 86, were still there unbeaten at the end as England romped past their 169 target with 10 wickets and four overs to spare to race into a final against Pakistan in Melbourne on Sunday.

“Obviously disappointed to finish in the semifinals. Probably would have certainly liked to go a couple of steps further. But yeah, just outplayed, outclassed today,” Dravid told reporters.

“They were the better team in all departments really. The scoreline showed that.”

India topped Group 2 with four wins out of five matches.

“Even in this tournament, I think we’ve had our moments,” said Dravid.

“There’s been some real individual quality from a lot of our players, shown some real good skills. But on the day we were just not good enough here.”

Buttler set the tone with three fours off the first over from Bhuvneshwar Kumar and added five more plus three sixes in his 49-ball innings, the third taking England to the winning line.

“It certainly feels (a perfect match) against a top quality opposition,” said Buttler.

“We came in very excited and there was a good feel around the group ... I thought everyone, from one to 11, stood up today.”

England’s performance on Wednesday was a far cry from earlier in the tournament when England were shocked by Ireland.

“That feels a long time ago now,” said Buttler.

“The character we’ve shown to get through the tournament since then, and put in our best performance today, has been amazing.”

Dravid also admitted that it was the Buttler-Hales stand that put India under pressure.

“He’s [Buttler] a very dangerous player, and we knew that,” said Dravid.

“We knew the key to the game obviously was to try and break that opening partnership as early as we could.

“Class players like that, both Buttler and Hales, I thought their partnership was fantastic today. They just put the pressure on us, never let that go.

“Buttler (is) one of the most dangerous T20 players going around.”

As the England pair took the game away, India shoulders drooped, heads dropped and there were some comical fielding errors.

But Dravid said it was the batting that had let them down.

“We had been batting well, were one of the teams who had been even in these conditions scoring 180 plus two-three times in the tournament,” he said.

“We were playing well. They bowled really well, were good up front, didn’t let us get away. We felt at that 15 over mark, we were probably 15-20 short. We should have been able to get 180-185 on that wicket.”

Even though Dravid felt that India fell about 20 runs short, skipper Rohit Sharma could not find an excuse for such a humiliating defeat.

“It’s pretty disappointing how we turned up today,” said Rohit.

“It was definitely not a wicket where a team can come and chase it down in 16 overs.

“The way we started with the ball was not ideal. We were a little nervy, but you have to give credit to the openers as well. They played really well.

“If we keep it tight and the batters still score runs, we’ll take it. But we didn’t do that today.”