India captain Rohit Sharma said that his team wasn’t “brave enough consistently” in their attempts to counter conditions that favour spin, and he made a suggestion that he wouldn’t hesitate to select players for particular situations if necessary.
India drew the opening match of the three-match ODI series, but gave up the next two, with their middle order collapsing under Sri Lanka’s four-pronged spin attack.
The next assignment for the Indian players is a two-match Test series against Bangladesh, which begins in Chennai on September 19. Until then, the players will have time off.
“We need to think which players could play on these kind of tracks but you also need to give consistent chances as it’s not easy to perform in one or two chances. It was a bad series and we need to accept it,” Rohit made no bones about how it panned out for his team.
“We have to accept where all we made mistakes. We couldn’t show more intent and aggression against spinners, and they put pressure relentlessly on us,” the skipper said after his team were shot out for 138 in pursuit of 249 in the third ODI here on Wednesday.
The one thing that every player on his team lacked was personalized plans.
“It’s about individual plans. We have had these issues in the past as well where the ball has spun a little bit. I can see the guys training hard in nets and they are trying to play different shots but we need to know how to keep momentum. We failed thrice. We should have won that first game which ended in a tie,” he noted.
The amiable skipper stated that players who could demonstrate flexibility under trying circumstances will be given preference in a courteous but firm manner.
“We know what the problems are. We will let players know this is what we want and if we have to be different in terms of choosing personnel, we will do that,” the skipper was straight as an arrow in his message.
“I don’t think we were brave enough throughout the entire series and hence we lagged behind throughout. We will address these issues,” the skipper added.
