"He has been very consistent," Dhoni said after the defeat. "I feel that is a strength of Rahul also, compact player but at the same time unorthodox shots. He plays all over the ground, over covers, mid off, mid on. So a complete cricketer. Of course there's a long way to go for him but the way he has played in the last six months, it's very encouraging to see him bat."
Rahul's knock kept India in the hunt throughout the chase and in the end, they were the favorites to clinch the tie with only eight needed off the final six deliveries. Dwayne Bravo, though, bowled an excellent final over to deny them the win as Dhoni sliced a slower delivery to Marlon Samuels at third man off the final ball when two runs were required. The Indian skipper gave credit where its due by hailing Bravo as one of the best death bowlers in world cricket.
"I felt we were totally in the game," he said. "Even the last ball, the thinking was right, the execution was wrong. When it comes to Bravo, I feel in the current scenario he's among the best when it comes to the death bowling. The amount of experience that he has really counts so you always know if he's bowling it's tough. What then becomes important is how we're executing.
"You have to really guess what he's looking to bowl and according to that you play your shots. So if you guess the bowler well and execute well, you'll end up winning. Rather than thinking who is bowling, what's important is to think what his strength is and where he'll look to pitch the next delivery."
The 35-year-old Indian captain also defended his bowlers after they fought back hard to 'restrict' the opposition to 245. At one stage, a world record total looked imminent after West Indies raced to 164 for 1 in the first 11 overs.
"If we can improve how we bowl in the first six overs, in fact it was the first 12 overs where we gave away too many runs," Dhoni remarked. "I was very happy how we brought the opposition down when it came to the last eight overs. That really matters because that is something where we have struggled quite consistently but it was a good exposure to our bowlers and they finished up well to restrict them to 245.
"Immediately as a bowler, what you have to do is you have to assess the conditions and change your game plan to some extent. Normally you think on a good wicket if I'm bowling four overs, if I even get hit for 40 runs and get one or two wickets, it's good enough. So you have to quickly assess what is a good bowling analysis on this wicket."
Dhoni was also pleased with the facilities at the stadium and thanked the sizeable Indian contingent that had turned up for the game. "The facility is as good as anywhere else," he said. "The ground itself is up to international standard. You can't score 500 runs on a bad wicket, so fantastic wicket. The practice wickets were fantastic.
"When it comes to the stadium, it's not a big stadium. The moment I say stadium I mean the number of fans it can house. I think it's close to 15,000. So overall looking at everything as a complete package, I think it was fantastic. We had fun."
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