South Africa completed a 3-0 clean sweep against India in the ODI series on Sunday after winning the third fixture by four runs. India did push South Africa to the edge with Deepak Chahar playing a brilliant cameo but the disappointing show by the middle-order comprising Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav once again proved to be an important factor. Speaking after the game, head coach Rahul Dravid pointed out that the visitors could have performed better in the middle overs and also warned players like that there is “a lot of competition” for the spots in India’s playing XI.
“Whether you bat 4, 5 or 6, you have got to know what the team’s requirements are. Shreyas has gone in pretty early in all three games and he has had enough time (out there in the middle)”, said the former India captain.
“We know guys have done well and we would like to back them as much as possible. Sometimes they would have good tours and sometimes, it won’t be possible, that’s just the way it is.”
“Obviously, there tends to be a lot of competition, people pushing for places and it’s not easy in that kind of a situation”, he further added.
Chasing a target of 288 runs, the visitors were bowled out for 283 in 49.2 overs. Despite the early departure of stand-in captain KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli gave India a solid platform with knocks of 61 runs and 65 runs respectively. But after their departure, India failed to impress with their middle order.
Coming in to bat at no. 4, Pant was dismissed for a golden duck. Meanwhile, Iyer could only muster 26 runs off 34 balls and Suryakumar added 39 runs to the scoreboard.
Dravid pointed out that his team didn’t fare well in the middle overs and didn’t play “smart cricket at critical situations”.
“We certainly could do better with batting in middle overs”, Dravid said.
“We didn’t because we played some poor shots and we didn’t play some smart cricket at critical situations.”
The former India captain also explained that players won’t be dropped right away as the management wants to give them “consistency” but they also need to put in “big performances”.
“We certainly want to give them that consistency and we want to give them that security”, he said.
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“And once you give them that consistency and security, you also got to demand performances, really big performances and that is an expectation you have when you play at this level, when you play for your country, you have to put in big performances and that’s a requirement. But idea is to give as much stability as you can.”
(With PTI inputs)
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