IND vs BAN: Batting as much an area of concern for India after ODI series loss

Bangladesh pulled off a repeat of their 2015 triumph over India with a thrilling victory over India in the second ODI, sealing the three-match series with a game to spare and preserving their formidable record at home — where they have now won 13 of the last 14 series.

And India skipper Rohit Sharma was understandably not too happy with the way his team performed in the must-win clash that they ended up losing by five runs, the margin of which would have been a lot higher had it not been for the captain’s brave half-century with an injured finger.

And in his post-match interview, Rohit focussed once again on the bowling department and how the lack of penetration in the middle and death overs of the Bangladesh innings cost India the game and the series.

“When you lose a game, there are positives and negatives. From being 69/6, allowing them to get to 270-odd wasn’t a great effort from our bowlers. We started well but the middle overs and the back end is what’s hurting us a lot.

“Happened in the last game as well. It’s something we need to work on,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation, where Mehidy Hasan Miraz was adjudged the Player of the Match for his game-changing maiden ODI hundred that turned the tide in favour of the ‘Tigers’.

Read: ‘Middle overs and back end is hurting us a lot,’ says Rohit Sharma after loss

And the skipper is not off the mark in his criticism of the bowling performance. India, after all, had the game somewhat done and dusted after reducing the Bangladeshis to 69/6 with the likes of Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim back in the hut. Mehidy, who has now produced two consecutive match-winning knocks in a row, sure deserves credit for his fighting spirit.

But to allow Bangladesh to make 271 from the position they were in at the end of the 19th over is also criminal. And it’s certainly not the first time the Men in Blue have been guilty of switching off after making inroads with the ball; something quite similar had happened in the first ODI, where Mehidy was able to forge a partnership with No 11 batter Mustafizur Rahman and guide his side to victory from a near-impossible position.

Read: Where India lost the plot in 2nd ODI despite Rohit Sharma’s heroics

But it would be imprudent of Rohit to focus on the bowling department and its shortcomings after defeats when the batting unit hasn’t been firing on all cylinders either, and has been relying on one standout individual performance or two to get them close to the target or to a respectable total.

Sure India had allowed Bangladesh to cross the 250-run mark and set a target that was more than twice of what they would have expected earlier in the innings. But then again, 272 isn’t quite the Herculean chase that the batting department eventually made it to be, especially in the age of T20 where targets in excess of 350 are no longer as safe as they used to be. And this was where openers Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli, who moved up in the order in the absence of the injured Rohit, should’ve set the tone with a solid partnership upfront and put their vast experience to use.

As has been the case more often in recent years than not, the Indian middle-order found itself under immense pressure yet again after a sub-par batting performance in the opening powerplay.

Kohli has had quite the turnaround in the 20-over format this year but the same unfortunately cannot be said of him in ODIs, where his average this year has been a little over 20 and his highest score in the last seven ODI outings has been 18. Dhawan did produce a captain’s knock of 72 in one of the games on the New Zealand tour, but hasn’t quite found the consistency needed to ensure he gets to play one last ICC tournament in the World Cup at home next year.

The move to promote Washington Sundar to No 4 didn’t yield the desired results and KL Rahul ended up playing a lap shot that was nowhere close to the line of the ball, resulting in a plumb LBW decision. Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel did revive India’s hopes with a century partnership with both bringing up their half-centuries, but failed to see the team home unlike Mehidy and Mustafizur on Sunday.

And unlike teams such as England that bat all the way to the No 11 position, the Indian lower-order comprises walking wickets more often than not, something that the team leadership has to take note of and work on in the days to come if they are to be a force in limited-overs cricket.

It wasn’t too different from how India batted in the opening game, where Rahul’s 70-ball 73 that was nearly half of the score that the visitors managed in the end and lent some respectability to what was otherwise a shoddy batting performance, where skipper Rohit and Iyer were the only other batters to cross the 20-run mark.

The spotlight ultimately fell on the bowlers for letting the game slip away from their grasp after reducing Bangladesh to 136/9 while defending 187, but had the batting department got its act right, India could have remained in the hunt for the trophy heading into the third one-dayer in Chittagong.

The slump in Team India’s recent performances — failing to reach the final of the Asia Cup, the comprehensive defeat at the hands of England in the T20 World Cup semi-final to going 0-2 down in Bangladesh — has forced the BCCI to convene an emergency meeting and discuss the way forward for the Men in Blue, especially in the one-day format.

The team, after all, hasn’t won an ICC trophy since the summer of 2013, and that long wait got extended in the T20 World Cup in Australia last month. If they are to end their wait in front of a sold-out crowd in Ahmedabad next year, then a complete overhaul is the need of the hour, as much in the batting department as any other.

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