In readiness for the third and final ODI against Sri Lanka which held on Wednesday, the Indian cricket team hit the net on Tuesday.
Sri Lanka won the second ODI by 32 runs after the first one ended in a tie last Friday.
India will hope to avoid its first series defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka within 27 years under new head coach Gautam Gambhir.
Through their official X handle, BCCI posted a video that showed their Rohit Sharma-led side being taken through some drills in nets with Sairaj Bahutule as interim bowling coach and assisted by Ryan ten Doeschate and Abhishek Nayar.
“Well I think the batters and overall as a unit, the bowlers as well, certain areas which we need to be working on, has been addressed and I think that’s what they were trying to implement, certain pattern of bowling which has been done to our batters, we’re trying to see how we can match that and find a solution” says Sairaj Bahutule in a video.
Rohit Sharma turned up for practice but didn’t bat according to reports. In nets Rishabh Pant was moving his bat around a bit when facing spinners. Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill along with KL Rahul had fairly long batting sessions. Neither Arshdeep Singh nor Mohammed Siraj delivered any ball.
Ryan ten Doeschate adds “We’re trying to be very specific and learn from mistakes that we made over the course of two games because conditions have been really difficult so guys have come up with their own plans and how they want to go about it. It’s more of mental point of view; they are all fantastic players of spin so that’s not likely to be an issue. We’re just trying form an environment where these guys feel positive where they can really express themselves and go out there showing how good they are. How often have we seen under pressure guys rising to the occasion? They feel that we’ll at least share the series with Sri Lanka. And the preparation has been made around that we can be our best.”
Following the loss in second match, India now has the choice of fielding their strongest XI or experimenting ahead of the next major ICC tournament which takes place in just six months.
According to Abhishek Nayar, “We Indians are very emotional and whenever we don’t get the results going in our favor there is a lot at stake. The passion and integrity of every individual player is at stake. Every cricketer in that dressing room knows what’s on the line here and most of the time it brings the best out of us as a team. It brings out that fighting spirit that you always want to see which is why you always try to take it out in the field with your teammates; this includes all strategies being implemented on the pitch more so during such occasions when you make tough decisions, have talks back, forths and then sometimes gets pushed up against the wall.”
The Gautam Gambir led coaching team who were brought in after India had just played some of its best One Day International cricket less than a year ago would find defeat hard to take. Despite their early success, they didn’t want to come to an end of Sri Lanka tour; where they had many questions than answers.
