After Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli, batting coach Sanjay Bangar has also defended the Indian wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni and credited the English bowlers for their comfortable victory that levelled the ODI series by 1-1 prior to the final ODI.
After winning the first ODI with the dominating performances, India failed to chase down the 323-run target in the second ODI at Lord’s (London) and lost by 86 runs.
Former Indian captain MS Dhoni has been heavily criticised for his slow knock of 37 off 59 balls in that high-chasing game. However, Bangar totally defended the Indian wicketkeeper-batsman by crediting the English bowlers for the victory and pointed out not having the batting depth in the lower-order.
The Indian batting coach said, “With the combination we are playing, we do not have the depth at numbers 8, 9 or 10 (the lower order), and when you lose a couple of wickets, it becomes really difficult to bat with that sort of freedom. Due credit to the England bowlers, they didn’t allow us to score any boundaries in that period and that was the reason the run rate kept climbing up.”
Bangar further added, “He was just hoping someone would bat with him and we were just hoping that he could bat till the 40th over and take the bowlers on. But, every time he looked to do that, we lost wickets – first there was Raina and then Hardik (Pandya), and then there was no batting to follow for him to do the usual stuff he does.”
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As the Indian top-order batting is majorly taking responsibilities in the recent limited-overs formats, the middle-order batting is not getting opportunities regularly. Bangar has pointed out this to defend the middle-order batting failure in the second ODI.
The former Indian all-rounder said, “The way our top order is batting, our middle order hasn’t got the opportunities as the top order is doing the bulk of the scoring. At times, they straightaway walk into the game situation. Mind you, not all of them are playing all the formats of the game so you have to give some weightage to that.
“Coming straight to international cricket and doing the sort of things you are expected to do in this format (is tough), so continuity factor also plays a part.”
While the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup is less than one year to go, Bangar is looking to settle the middle-order batting between this period of time.
The 45-year-old said, “Going forward, there are still 16 to 17 games to go, we’re looking at the games remaining wherein we could look at settling the middle order slots. I am pretty sure that things are fluid at the moment. It’s not that a guy is only going to bat at a particular number.”
In the last game, KL Rahul (0) failed at no.4 position. Apart from talking about the reason of choosing Suresh Raina over Dinesh Karthik, Bangar also spoke about the number three and four position fight between KL Rahul and the skipper Virat Kohli.
Bangar said, “Obviously, the plan was to have a left-hander batting in the middle-order. That is the reason why Suresh (Raina) was picked ahead of Dinesh (Karthik). We did change a bit in the T20 format, where KL batted at three and Virat batted at four. Looking at this series, and the performances that Virat has got at three, especially in the last series, he scored three hundreds versus South Africa in five games.”
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Talking about the middle-order batting option, Bangar also has the confidence on Ambati Rayudu who has missed the limited-overs series in this tour due to failing the Yo-Yo fitness test.
Bangar said, “It is going to be a very fluid situation. We’ll see as to the players available and the fitness of the players. Ambati Rayudu was someone who can bat very well in the middle-order, but unfortunately, he couldn’t clear the fitness test. But I am pretty sure going forward, if he passes the fitness test, he could also be a candidate.
“Lot’s of spots are open. The good thing is that the bench strength that we have Rayudu, Manish Pandey and Ajinkya Rahane. There are enough spots for each and every eventuality that we might face leading up to the World Cup.”
After pacer Jasprit Bumrah has been ruled out from the limited-overs series on this England tour, another dependable pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar missed out the last T20I and two next ODIs due to the fitness issue and these hurt hugely in the Indian pace-bowling line-up.
While Kumar still isn’t sure for the Tuesday ODI at Leeds, Bangar said that they are not going to take any chances with him as it is an ideal situation to measure the bench strength.
Bangar said, “He’s a quality bowler. We’ve obviously been missing our two frontline bowlers in the ODI format. Also provides us an opportunity, because there are not too many games to go before the World Cup – only 16 or 17 games. It gives us an ideal situation to test the bench strength.
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“Also with the upcoming Test series coming, we never wanted to take any chances with Bhuvi. He’s very critical to the team plans. He’s in with a chance to play (tomorrow). He’ll have to go through some sort of a fitness test before we can confirm his availability for the next game.”
In the end, Bangar claimed that the Indian cricketers are very focused at the moment.
He finished it by quoting, “I think the amount of cricket we’re playing and the results we’ve got in the last 12 months or so, the team is pretty used to it (criticism). That is something we cannot control but the guys are very focused.”
