India’s stand-in captain Rohit Sharma acknowledged that Ajinkya Rahane’s technique against pacers was totally missed on a seaming track in Dharamsala. He also said that Rahane’s inclusion was difficult for as the Jinx is considered a specialist opening batsman in the ODIs by the team management.
Earlier, during the Australia series, Rahane scored four consecutive half-centuries but he was excluded from the playing XI in the first ODI against Sri Lanka, while Shreyas Iyer was handed a maiden ODI cap at No. 3 and Manish Pandey was picked for the No. 5 slot.
During the post-match press conference, Rohit said, “I think we made it clear in Sri Lanka that he is an opening batsman and we don’t want to keep changing his batting slot. It plays on anyone’s mind, not just his if one’s batting order is kept on changing. We have identified him as an opening batsman and that’s the only reason he had to sit out. Having said that we understand the runs he scored in the past few series.”
He further added, “But we wanted to give these guys Pandey, (Kedar) Jadhav, Iyer fair amount of game before we start touring abroad. It’s important that they take the opportunity.”
After India’s inning got wrapped up for 112 in 38.2 overs, the Islanders chased the target down in 20.4 overs. While none of the Indian batsman shown some resistance, MS Dhoni stood among the wrecks with a stubborn knock of 65 and Sharma heaped praise on the former skipper.
Talking about Dhoni, Rohit said, “He has been in that situation so many times and has proved himself again and again. First of all, I never understood why there was a talk of he being in our plans or not. Once he gets runs the whole conversation changes. He showed us again. I wish one of our top order was batting so that we could have got more runs. But we learn from it and move forward.”
When asked if India’s frequent batting collapse can raise concerns for the upcoming South Africa for a Test series under the same kind of conditions, Rohit said: “This is a one-day side, I don’t think there is any comparison. With the Test team, we struggled in Kolkata as well but any team in those type of conditions will struggle. I have seen enough cricket and we recently saw Ashes as well, what was happening there as well.”
Defending India’s unexplainable batting collapse, Rohit said, “In conditions like these, only one or two batsmen will score, not all batsmen will score runs. I don’t think we played any rash shots, but they bowled at the right channel, kept us guessing all the time and batsmen were made to play all the time.”
He further elaborated, “We knew conditions were going to be tough but sometimes when you are put in such situations, you have to bat the situation, which means we got to respect the bowlers. This experience will teach us a lot of things as a team. We take it in our stride and move forward. Again if we are put in that situation we will respond better.”
Rohit applauded Lankan pace trio of Suranga Lakmal (4/13), Nuwan Pradeep (2/37) and Angelo Mathews (1/8), who rattled the Indian batting line-up with a fine display of seam bowling. He said, “Credit should go to the Sri Lankan bowlers, they made full use of the conditions. But as a team, as a batting unit, days like these will teach us a lot of things, not always we will play on flat conditions and we as a team wants to thrive in such conditions and come out on top. It is an eye opener, we will learn from it. It is a young batting group, these guys, including myself, will learn and play out of these situations well next time.“
While talking about the no-ball incident when Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Upul Tharanga on a no-ball, Rohit said, “We lost the game with the bat and not with the ball. It will be unfair to single out one individual, especially a bowler. I think we as a batting group failed. Nobody knew it will happen but this is the game that we play and they go out there trying their best. I wouldn’t say it cost us dearly, because there was not enough total on the board. If we were defending 180-190, but if you are defending 110, you can hardly do anything except with the new ball and comeback into the game.”
