Bangalore: In a grim message ahead of the big engagements, including the World Cup, captain Rahul Dravid Saturday sought to blame his “key players” for the Indian team’s slump and said it was high time they delivered.

Dravid said India’s lack of consistency in recent tournaments was largely due to the collective failure of the top players and the team could regain its winning momentum only if that aspect was corrected.

“I just think that we need to get performances from lot of our key players. Last season when we were doing really well, lot of players in the team were performing consistently and were sort of playing if not up to their potential, sometimes even above their potential,” Dravid said here.

“For the last 2-3 series we have not been able to get consistent performances from most of our key players. That’s something you need to correct. There’s quality in the team but we need to get back into putting in consistent personal performances which will help the team,” he said.

The Indian team has been going through a lean phase, particularly in the shorter version of the game since the tour of the West Indies in April this year.

The team lost the one-day series in the Carribean, failed to reach the final of the tri-series in Malaysia and were knocked out of the Champions Trophy before the semi-final stage.

Commenting on the team’s performance in the Champions Trophy, he said: “Obviously we could have done better. It would have been nice to reach the semi-finals or final of the tournament especially because it was in India,” he said. (PTI)