India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said poor form of the key batsmen, including himself, resulted in theteam's morale-shattering defeat against SouthAfrica in the Twenty20 World Cup heretonight.

The defending champions cut a sorry figure tonight when theirmuch-vaunted batting order failed to chase a modest victory target of 131 runsand sunk to their third straight defeat in the tournament.

"We played with six frontlinebatsmen and the seventh is an all-rounder. When three of them don't click in amatch like this, it becomes really very hard. Throughout the tournament I thinkwe bowled well, wherever we played but we lacked a few things when it comeswith the batting," he added.

"Batting wise we were reallynot up to the mark and unfortunately, throughout the tournament it happened.When we come back in nine months time, hopefully we will be a better preparedside," Dhoni said, referring to the next Twenty20 World Cup.

Asked about the crowd support, Dhonisaid,"The kind of support we get when we play in England. But we have towin games, else we will get booed at the end of the game." Dhoni was notready to believe that the Indian team had turned bad overnight and felt theyjust could not click on those particular days.

"In this format, it's not aboutwhat kind of side you are but what you do on that particular day. In all threedepartment. It's a game where you have to be there throughout the 40overs," Dhoni explained.

"The slow bowlers bowled reallywell. They did a great job today and were well supported in the field. We areexcited for the semi-finals. We have adapted to every surface we have played.We will play Pakistan on Thursday and we are very excited," Smith said.

"I don't think it was the fanciest knock of my life. Thetrick is to be solid in the first 20 balls and then you can start expressingyourself. It was important to take singles and twos. Later on in t innings, youcan look for the big shots," he said.