Smarting from the eight-wicket defeat to West Indies, a dejected Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his team failed to gauge the wicket and felt that batsmen should have paid more respect to the rival bowlers.

Dhoni stood amid the ruins with a sedate 95 as India suffered a batting collapse against some fierce fast bowling to be dismissed for a modest 188 in 48.2 overs on Sunday.

"We should have paid a little more respect to the bowlers. The wicket was a bit difficult, it was swinging around a bit. We didn't judge the wicket well and just went around playing our strokes which really brought our downfall," Dhoni said after the match.

"Once you lose too many wickets then the only thing that you are doing is catching up. RP and me had a partnership otherwise it would have been quite embarrassing," he added.

Dhoni forged a record 101-run partnership for the ninth wicket with RP Singh to stage India's recovery after they were reduced to 82-8 in 22 overs.

Dhoni said India could have scored a good total if they would have got off to a better start as the wicket became favourable for batting later on.

"Later on, the wicket became better for batting. When you are batting first, initially you expect the wicket to do a bit and it is the first half an hour and after that you can capitalise if you get up a good start," he said.