India will shield bowlers after Pakistan defeat

India will experiment with different field settings to compensate for their bowling deficiencies at the World Twenty20, their captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, said ahead of his team's opening game against Afghanistan today.

The 2007 champions failed to defend a formidable 185-run target against Pakistan in a warm-up game on Monday, when their key bowlers Irfan Pathan, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Zaheer Khan, and Harbhajan Singh went for more than 10 runs an over. India lost the match by five wickets two days after they had defeated Sri Lanka by 26 runs with the bowlers led by Pathan doing an excellent job to bowl out the hosts for 120 runs.

"Bowling has always been a bit of a concern," Dhoni said. "We will try different strategies and different field settings, [to] complement our way of bowling. We are looking to play with seven batsmen to start the tournament."