New Delhi: The T20I clean sweep India managed over Sri Lanka seems like a dream after the visiting side crumbled on Wednesday, suffering an embarrassing defeat in the third and final ODI of the three-game series. After ruling over the Lankans for close to three decades, the Men in Blue lost their first bilateral series against the island nation in 27 years.
The Rohit Sharma-led side failed to chase a score of 249 in the final match, going down by a massive 110-run margin. The visitors had earlier lost the second ODI by 32 runs after the first ended in a thrilling tie. While the bowling seemed somewhat up to the mark in the 50-over format, batters majorly disappointed in all the three games as the Lankans outplayed the Indian side at home.
What went wrong for India?
Failure of biggies during chase
While skipper Rohit Sharma continued to be astute like he has been doing since the ODI World Cup 2023, other big names in the batting department failed miserably. Virat Kohli, who played a pivotal knock against South Africa in the T20 World Cup final, failed to execute and extend his contribution in all the 50-over games.
With scores of 24, 14 and 20 in the first, second and third ODI respectively, Kohli found it hard to tackle the bowlers, especially spinners, of the Lankan side. Apart from Kohli, players such as Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant could not stand tall in front of a moderate bowling attack of the Lankans. Apart from the tactical middle-order players, Shivam Dube, who has earned a name for himself in the IPL, choked in the entire series. The CSK player who’s known for his big-hitting prowess failed to showcase any effort. At the same time, Axar did his best but went down cheaply in the final game.
Strength turns into weakness as batters unable to play spin
The Indian team, which always has been known for tackling the spinners well, faltered this time as majority of Indian wickets went down against the slow bowlers. All their learnings and experience off coming from India which is mostly known for spin friendly tracks went into vain as their strength turned into their biggest weakness. In the entire series comprising three ODIs, India lost as many as 27 wickets against the spin bowlers which became the most by any team in a bilateral ODI series.
Bowlers fail to capitalise
While the Indian bowlers seemed somewhat up to the mark in the ODI series, they were unable to capitalise on the opportunities. The bowling department comprising of Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Axar Patel among others did a fairly good job in restricting the Lankans to scores of 230, 240 and 248 in the first, second and third ODI respectively, yet a room for error was always kept there which was well explored by the home team to score extra runs.
Gautam Gambhir, who started his tenure as the head coach of India on a positive note post the T20 series triumph, added this unwanted record to his name in what was India’s last ODI match of 2024. The Men in Blue will have to regroup themselves before their next ODI assignment that is against England in January 2025.
India went down against Sri Lanka in third and final ODI as the Men in Blue suffered a massive batting collapse after Rohit Sharma’s initial push. Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
