HARARE, Sept 7: Captain Saurav Ganguly said India lost the match in the first 10 overs of New Zealand’s innings after his team went down by six wickets in the final of the triangular one-day series on Tuesday.

“We knew we had a fighting total on a slow pitch but just didn’t finish it off,” Ganguly told reporters.

“We definitely lack something otherwise we wouldn’t keep losing finals. We just need to put it out of our heads,” he added, referring to the fact India have lost 16 of 21 finals dating back to March 1999.

“We lost the match in the first 10 overs but our spinners did very well to pull it back a bit.”

New Zealand, chasing 277, scored 82 runs in the opening 10 overs before Nathan Astle’s unbeaten 115 carried them to victory in the penultimate over.

India also got off to a flying start after winning the toss, with the top three of Virender Sehwag (75), Ganguly (31) and Mohammad Kaif (93 not out) lifting them to 155 for one in the 25th over.

But none of the other batsmen managed to score more than 20.

“If any of the other top six batsmen had got a 50, we would have won,” Ganguly said.

Skipper Stephen Fleming was delighted with New Zealand’s display.

“We don’t have too many trophies in the cabinet but today went perfectly to script,” said Fleming.

“We knew we wanted to bowl first because it’s given everyone a small advantage in this series and we played almost the way they played against us the other day.”

India beat the Kiwis by six wickets on Friday, Kaif hitting 102 not out as they chased down 279.

Fleming struck 61 in 66 balls as he and the experienced Astle shared an opening stand of 121 in 110 balls to lay the platform for Tuesday’s victory.

“We knew if we set the tone and got the scoreboard going early, it would take the pressure off the other batsmen,” said Fleming, who also praised his bowlers for not wilting in the face of India’s early onslaught.—Reuters