The Indian captain, Rohit Sharma lamented on his side not being able to play a ‘consistent’ brand of cricket which led to the team losing out on the second ODI against Sri Lanka by 32 runs on Sunday.
Rohit also suggested that there would need to be talks on how the Indian team would navigate through the middle-overs. That is twice now that the middle-order suffered a major collapse to get Sri Lanka back in the game.
READ MORE: IND vs SL, 2nd ODI: Vandersay’s Six Wicket Haul Demolishes Indian Batters as Sri Lanka Win by 32 Runs
“When you lose a game, everything hurts. It’s not just about those 10 overs (when India lost six wickets for 50 runs). You have to play consistent cricket and we failed to do that. Little disappointed but these things happen,” said Rohit in the post-match presentation ceremony.
India was reeling behind after the leg-spinner Jeffrey Vandersay picked up a six-wicket haul leading to India being bowled out for just 208 runs and leading to a loss for the Indian side.
“We weren’t good enough. Don’t want to look too much into how we played. But there’ll be talks about our batting in the middle overs,” he added.
Speaking on the current team combination, Rohit suggested that the presence of left-right combinations should have resulted in easy strike-rotation but the side was unable to do so and the Indian captain called for his batters to adapt to the conditions quicker.
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“You got to adapt to what’s in front of you. With left-right (combination of batsmen), we felt it’ll be easier to rotate strike. But credit to Jeffrey, he got six wickets.”
Just like the previous game, Rohit gave team India the perfect start when chasing as he scored a 29-ball fifty but got dismissed. Following his innings, none of the other Indian batters, barring a resilient knock by Axar were able to get going in the spin-friendly conditions at Colombo.
“The reason I got 65 is because of the way I batted. When I am batting like that, there are a lot of risks taken. If you don’t cross the line, you always feel disappointed.
The logic behind his aggressive approach at the start was simple. To give his side as many runs as possible at the start so the middle-order does not have to deal with scoreboard pressure whilst dealing with the conditions that get tougher to bat in the middle stages of the innings.
“But I don’t want to compromise on my intent. We understand the nature of this surface, it gets tough in the middle overs. You have to try to get as many as possible in the powerplay,” he added.
Sri Lanka now has a 1-0 series lead and India will be desperate to bounce back in the final game of the series to take the draw. Perhaps the Indian team could consider making some changes in the side to ensure that they can take the win.
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