“When you are playing for India, there’s no place for complacency, it’s not going to be the case when I’m captaining the side, you come out and try to give your best,” said Rohit Sharma after he was asked if India took Sri Lanka lightly. Well, if the Men in Blue were serious about this bilateral then what went wrong? They first bottled an easy run-chase before getting beaten all ends up in the second ODI. However, the final nail in the coffin came as India failed to chase another target, and were thrashed by a massive margin of 110 runs. Below we will dissect on what were the massive mistakes made by skipper Rohit Sharma & head coach Gautam Gambhir in their first assignment together.
Pathetic application by Indian batters
India are known to tackle spin bowling. They make rank-turners in Tests at home and when a similar kind of track pop up in Colombo. The R. Premadasa Stadium offered massive turn to the spinners. It was hard luck for India that they lost the toss in every game, and had to bat second in tricky conditions.
Regardless, the application shown by some batters was quite bewildering. Even someone like Virat Kohli, who is perhaps the best ODI batter of all time, was undone by the trickery of spinners. In fact, he was dismissed by three spinners on every occasion. For once in almost every over, he was clueless, just like every other batter. Rohit Sharma excelled in his role of bashing bowlers inside the powerplay. However, the middle-order didn’t follow that up. Most of them failed to judge what lengths are going to be bowled and even failed to read the grip of a spinner off his hand.
Shreyas Iyer, who is a great player against spin, didn’t manage to play even 40 balls in the entire ODI leg. KL Rahul failed to deliver and was dropped for the third ODI. Shivam Dube, who likes to take on tweaker, was tweaked under 34 runs in three innings. No real movement of feet, errors in judgement and not enough confident, led to the downfall of Indian batters.
Selection calls
Even before the series began, the Indian squad selection was massively questioned. The selection of Shivam Dube and Rishabh Pant were questioned. More than that, leaving out the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Sanju Samson and Ravi Bishnoi proved to be detrimental. Imagine how lethal Jaddu & Bishnoi could have been in these conditions.
While India played Washington, Axar and Kuldeep, they still needed more option. Although Riyan Parag did absolutely well, he was played at least one match short. India had four proper pacers alongside Dube in the squad, certainly not the combination for the Colombo pitch. Another spin-bowling option would have fantastic. Apart from this, especially after the first two ODIs, India could’ve tried Harshit Rana. He is an exciting prospect and if Gambhir tried his options in the entire series, ranging from the T20Is to ODIs, why not Rana.
Tinkering with batting order
Shreyas Iyer, has been perhaps the best number four batter since 2023. He has an average of 51.74 with a strike rate of over 101. Funnily enough, he never batted at his preferred number four spot in the entire series. Gambhir and the team management kept tinkering with the batting slots. In case of a few quick wickets, Axar Patel was sent ahead of many (which might be a great idea). However, even Shivam Dube, who is a designated finisher, came to bat at number four in the second innings.
In fact, none of the middle-order batter played at a similar position in all three ODIs. KL Rahul, who redefined himself at number five, played once at number six and the other time at seventh. It is understandable that Gambhir wanted to try new things but ultimately India didn’t gain anything from these tactics.
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