England bowler Jade Dernbach wary of Mahendra Dhoni
Last updated on .From the section Cricket
Bowler Jade Dernbach says containing India captain Mahendra Dhoni is crucial to England's hopes of winning the one-day international series.
Dhoni struck an unbeaten 87 off 70 balls in the home team's 126-run victory in the first match of the five-game contest in Hyderabad on Friday.
England have been told by captain Alastair Cook that they must improve ahead of Monday's second game in Delhi.
"We need to find a way of being better than him [Dhoni]," said Dernbach.
Chasing 301 to win, England appeared to be fairly well set at 111-2 before the middle order collapsed to 174 all out - and Dernbach is clear about the danger posed by the Indian skipper.
"He's a fantastic player," said the 25-year-old. "As a bowling unit, we just need to find a way of getting him out and restricting him.
"That's the exciting bit of the game, and we just need to find a way of containing the runs and finding ways to get wickets.
"In the games where India have done well, he seems to have been the man who has been there to be quite destructive, so we have to find a way of getting him out.
"With his ability to hit boundaries, our margins for error are quite small. As you saw the other night, a couple of yorkers which were missed by a couple of inches found their way to the boundary for six."
The Surrey paceman admitted England were below par in the series opener.
"Obviously we are disappointed after the result the other night," he added. "We just didn't play very well on the night. That's the simple fact of it and we've got four games to rectify the situation.
"Any time you're going to come overseas, and especially in this case playing against the world champions on their own patch, is going to be a difficult task.
"These conditions are very different for us, something we don't experience very often back home. So we're going to have to adapt as best we can and find a way of winning."
