Rahul Dravid wants to improve away-game record

Bangalore: Worried about his team`s away record after losing to Royal Challengers Bangalore, Rajasthan Royals captain Rahul Dravid said the side hasn`t played its best cricket yet but oozed confidence of getting there with a balanced side at his disposal.

"In terms of winning away games I think it is going to be important as the tournament goes on. We have played very well at home by winning all three games. We have won a game away but lost two," Dravid told reporters in the post-match press conference here.

"We have to improve our record there. It is a long tournament. We still haven`t played our best cricket and hopefully we can do that." "One of the good things about our team which I like is that we got the balance which allows us to play better away from home and that is the reason why I am a little more confident," he added.Talking about the loss against Bangalore, Dravid said the team lost its way once his partnership with Stuart Binny was broken."We thought of getting 50 runs in the last five overs and post a total of 160 on the board to defend. Bangalore has been a 150-160 wicket and we knew that. Unfortunately we never really got that extra 30 runs which we probably needed in the game," he said.Dravid said the team needed only one batsman to play a big innings but failed."We were disappointed after putting up a really good batting performance against Mumbai a few days ago...How we bounce back is going to be important for us," he said. However, Dravid said he was impressed with his bowlers for taking wickets at various stages of the match even though a total of 117 was not quite defendable.
Obviously going ahead, it is important for our top four or five batsmen to score runs for us as we have a long tail. We have been doing it so far in this tournament but we failed here," he said.Replying to a query, the former Indian captain said West Indian all-rounder Kevin Cooper was left out of the side and Shaun Tait and James Faulkner were picked in order to remove Chris Gayle early on.
They (Bangalore) have a top-heavy batting lineup. We tried to pick the team we thought we have the best chance to get Chris out and Tait and Jimmy have got him in the past," he said.With such a low score to defend, Gayle was able to play a very different game and without any pressure, the Rajasthan skipper said.Replying to a query, Dravid said Sreesanth missed out on getting more than an over as he planned to attack the Bangalore batsmen by rotating the bowlers."Sree just started and then as the game panned out we wanted to get wickets. Therefore I rotated my bowlers all the time. It is bit tough to give everyone a bowl and Sree missed out," he said.Replying to a query, Dravid said the team is expecting a lot from Australia`s Shane Watson.
He seems to be in a really good space. He is going to build up his workload," he said. PTI