Lack of partnerships proved crucial: Dhoni

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said lack of partnerships cost the team a six-wicket defeat against England in the one-off Twenty20 international at the Old Trafford here Wednesday.

"Partnership is key, doesn't matter what format it is. Once you lose quick wickets, like we did after 12 overs, it doesn't help. You want to have at least five or six wickets in the slog overs," said Dhoni.

India lost nine wickets in the final eight as they slumped from 104 for one in the 13th over before being bowled out for 165, with three balls remaining.

"We were may be 12-15 runs short in because we lost quick wickets in the middle overs which meant we could not score what we should have," Dhoni said.

"It is a short format but even then people don't realise that it is important to have some form of partnerships going. In the short format you want to get 15-to-20-run partnerships especially after you lose quick wickets by the 12th over. You do not want to lose too many wickets, so that when you go into the slog overs, you have five to six wickets in hand. We should have batted the 20 overs but more importantly we needed those extra 20 runs," he said.

"Since we don't have the fifth bowler, we wanted to push a bit hard. We wanted to get those extra 15-20 runs and in the process we lost quick wickets. Once you lose quick wickets it becomes difficult. Virat (Kohli) hasn't bowled much in Twenty20 format and there were two part-time off-spinners."

With Kohli and Rohit Sharma sharing the fifth bowler's role the four overs cost the visitors 48 runs, and Dhoni ruled out the possibility of the team going with six batsmen and five bowlers in the ODIs.

"In the last two years, we haven't played with five bowlers. I don't see it happening now. We don't want to play with a batter light (less)."

Dhoni praised debutants Ajinkya Rahane who made 61 and Rahul Dravid who slammed three sixes in his knock of 31 runs.

"Rahane expressed himself. He didn't worry too much about the occasion. Whenever the ball was in his area, he scored most off them. He got over 50 runs which was critical for us. As for Dravid, he tends to take the leg to the ball in longer formats of the game but here he needed to take the leg out of the line of the ball. That's what you sometimes need to do in international cricket," he said.