Ravi Shastri concedes India's middle-order looked ordinary

Head coach Ravi Shastri admitted that despite their dominating performance against South Africa in the ODI series where they won the series 5-1, they have to address the issue for the middle-order which “looked ordinary.” Even though India registered an unprecedented series win against the Proteas, winning five matches by convincing margins, Shastri admitted that Virat Kohli’s team is “far from ready” for the 2019 World Cup, which will be played in England.

Kohli along with openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma did the bulk of the scoring for India in the ODI series. Notably, the skipper hit 558 runs, thereby becoming the first batsman to score more than 500 runs in a bilateral series.

On every occasion, the middle-order was expected to fire, it struggled to convert starts into big totals as it looked fragile throughout the six-match series. While Hardik Pandya managed only 26 runs from four innings, wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni hit 69 from four innings at a strike rate of 81.18.

Troubled by the middle-order woes, Shastri insisted that the team management will “sit down and weigh all options” after the conclusion of the ongoing South Africa tour. However, the coach insisted that Dhoni will continue to be a key member of the team.

“I will be the first to admit our middle-order batting has looked ordinary. We failed to convert good starts into big totals. So, there are factors we’re looking at,” Shastri said in the pre-match press interaction.

“At the same time, there are players back in India who have been doing well in domestic cricket. Over the last six months, we had conveyed [to those who are potential India caps] what the team will be looking at, in terms of skills, fitness, challenges etc. Once this tour concludes, it will be time to revisit those conversations,” he added.

“The top-order has batted beautifully and our bowlers were phenomenal but the fifth, sixth and the seventh slot in the batting order needs to be worked upon,” the head coach stated.

What will become of Shreyas Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane and Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik and Kedar Jadhav who are all potential candidates for the middle-overs is yet to be seen. None of these batsmen was given a consistent run at their respective slots but if the coach’s words are anything to go by, we will see some of them being backed for longer runs from now on.