Indian bowlers were unable to defend their 199-run total at the HPCA Stadium as South Africa took lead in three-match series with a comfortable seven-wicket win.
Young left-arm spinner Axar Patel was hammered around the park with Man of the Match Jean-Paul Duminy (68 not out) hitting him for three sixes in the 16th over, collecting 22 runs. Dhoni said it was imperative for the bowlers to make a strong comeback after being taken to task but that did not happen.
The captain though was not too unhappy with his bowlers, considering the favourable conditions for the batsmen, but said two or three bad overs intermittently hurt them badly.
"There were phases in the game, at least two phases of four deliveries each where we gave away lot of runs. That actually put lot of pressure. Overall I think, when you score 200 on a good wicket, there will be considerable pressure on the bowlers to defend because opposition will also look to chase down the total.
"The effort was good, 200 was close to par score but we could have done slightly better in bowling. You can not give too many runs in those six balls. You have bad overs but you have to restrict it to may be 12 or 15 runs and that helps the bowler coming after you. You have to keep choking the batsmen to win a game like this," he said.