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Follow Us“We didn’t play good cricket throughout the series,” admitted Rohit Sharma in the post-match presentation after the 0-2 series defeat in the ODI series against Sri Lanka. However, when he was asked about the positives in the series, he rambled through a long answer to fill the silence.
The only positive was his explosive batting at the top. The nice guy that Rohit is, he was caught between a rock and a hard place there. Maybe, through Roshan Abeysinghe’s question, he realized that there are indeed no other positives from this ODI series.
The defeat, however, has brought a reality check, bringing some frailties from the past into question again. While India can look at the uncontrollable, like losing the toss in all clashes, we look at the controllable that India didn't ace. This is where the defeat happened, and India need to fine-tune a few things.
The link between Siraj & India's powerplay numbers
On paper, India’s powerplay bowling numbers don’t look too bad. Despite averaging 60 at an economy of 4 runs per over, India were better than Sri Lanka on both metrics (71.3 and 7.1 respectively) in the first 10 overs. But it is also important to factor in Rohit Sharma’s brilliance upfront which single-handedly impacted Sri Lanka’s bowling numbers.
Overall, India still didn’t strike enough early as they would have liked. Going wicketless in the powerplay in the third ODI was a reminder of those dry powerplay spells in 2020 and 2021 that hampered India in the format. Mohammed Siraj’s form is connected to this.
In 2020 and 2021, India averaged 131.8 and 95.8 runs per wicket in the first 10 overs. Then Siraj started playing regular ODIs from 2022 onwards. He was the highest wicket-taker for India in this phase, picking 39 wickets in total at 18.2 runs apiece. India’s powerplay bowling average relaxed to 25.1.
Pace was not the flavor of this series. In the dry conditions, the fast bowlers picked only 16.7% of the wickets which neutralized Siraj. He was economical in the powerplay – 1/11 in four overs in the first ODI and 1/16 in five overs in the second — but was not making inroads as expected. Arshdeep Singh has also emerged as a powerplay wicket-taker but in the absence of lateral movement, he went wicketless with the new ball.
In the series decider, India played only one specialist seamer, pairing Siraj with the part-timer Shivam Dube with the new ball in an unexpected event. Surprisingly, while Dube was tidy, conceding only nine runs in his four overs upfront, Siraj bowled on both sides of the wicket. He conceded 29 in his four overs. Despite the bonus of Dube’s bowling, India couldn’t build any pressure in the first 10 overs.
While it would be harsh to blame it on Siraj who had one bad game in the series, India also need to frame a secondary plan for such conditions.
Undoing the hard work
India’s age-old pet peeve of not closing out an innings with the ball came back to haunt them in these three one-dayers. In the first ODI, Sri Lanka recovered from 142/6 in the 35th over to post 230/8 on the board. That is 88 runs for two wickets in around 15 overs with the 21-year-old Dunith Wellalage scoring his career best score of 67* from 65 balls.
In the second ODI, Sri Lanka were 136/6 around the same mark in the innings. They posted 240/9, ie 104/3 in the last 15 overs. Wellalage scored 39 from 35 here.
India pulled back things alright in the last fixture but releasing the pressure cost them twice in the series. To add to the worries, they also leaked runs at around six per over.
Remember the last ODI series India lost away from home — against Bangladesh in December 2022? In the second ODI, Bangladesh recovered from 69/6 to post 271/7 with Mehidy Hasan Miraz amassing a hundred batting at number eight.
Coming back to this series, India had a chance to bowl Sri Lanka out in all three ODIs but couldn’t finish the job in either. In comparison, Sri Lanka tightened the noose on India’s lower order, creating a significant difference in the series.
Inadequacy against spin
Bangladesh away, 2022
Australia at home, 2023
Sri Lanka away, 2024
What is common in the Men in Blue’s last three ODI series defeats? They flunked at crucial moments against spin in all three series.
The statement that the Indian batters are excellent at playing spin shows only half the picture for the current batch. Barring Rohit Sharma and to some extent, Axar Patel, every other batter has some inadequacy against spin bowling that was exposed in this series.
To begin, most of these Indian batters don’t pick spinners off the hand, but react to the changing trajectory off the deck. Consequently, India’s top eight batters combined to average only 9.3 for 10 wickets against the Sri Lankan leg spinners. Both Wanindu Hasaranga (3/58 in the first ODI) and his replacement Jeffrey Vandersay (6/33 in the second ODI) won the Player of the Match awards.
India have also been susceptible to left-arm finger spinners. In the third ODI, Wellalage hurt India with the ball, nabbing 5/27 in only 5.1 overs.
Shubman Gill is known to be a great player of spin bowling but struggles to score freely in spin-friendly conditions. Shreyas Iyer and Shivam Dube can hammer spinners on their day but are not great at defensive batting. Dube was out lbw in all three games and twice while defending.
Axar Patel and Washington Sundar gave into their match-up, off-spin, pushing Charith Asalanka’s case of being called an all-rounder. And with Rishabh Pant, you are never sure of anything.
Virat Kohli was also out lbw in all three fixtures, getting beaten on the inside edge every time, in near-identical fashion in the last two matches. Left-arm spin has now nabbed him 10 times in ODIs since 2022, averaging only 24.1 runs per wicket.
The fact that none of them plays any variant of the sweep stroke actively also handicaps them against spin.
Only Rohit Sharma, who holds most qualities of attacking spinners efficiently, had good numbers against spin in this series.
Misfiring tactics of the new management
India batted an out-of-positioned left-hander at number four in all three games. With Shreyas Iyer returning, India should have handed him that slot where he has had most of his success. However, this management seems like they want a left-hander at number four.
In what looks completely a Gautam Gambhir-move, Washington Sundar batted at four in the first ODI. In the second, it was Shivam Dube and in the third, Rishabh Pant. Iyer batted twice at five and once at six. KL Rahul batted at number seven in the second ODI.
In hindsight, the batting order doesn’t seem to have mattered much. However, it gives a peek into the thinking of the new management. Coming from success in T20 cricket and that being the only format where he has coached, Gambhir is venturing into the LHB-RHB tactic in ODIs now. But even on that note, it is strange that India never used Axar at four, one of their better hitters of spin-bowling.
Even with the ball, it felt they could have played Riyan Parag from the second ODI and be a step ahead in assessing the conditions.
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