India lost their first ODI against Australia in the three-match ODI series. The Mumbai loss saw Virat Kohli coming to bat at No. 4 which gave birth to a lot of controversies. Experts share different opinions on the match that India lost by ten wickets. Virender Sehwag thinks that the reason of defeat was mainly the lack of positive intent in the Indian team.
Batters lacked confidence
In an interaction with Cricbuzz, Virender Sehwag said that the confidence was not visible in the Indian batsmen. He explained, “I think the preparation was fine, but there was no positive intent when the batsmen came out. Perhaps we’d have seen more of it had Rohit Sharma not got out. Shikhar Dhawan is making a comeback, KL Rahul, playing at No.3, might have been thinking that his place in the side may be in danger if he doesn’t score big. The freedom that comes with the confidence that a player is guaranteed his place in the side, whatever happens, was not visible in the way they batted.”
Indian team is already losing the series 1-0 and they need to make a strong comeback on Friday at Rajkot in the second match of the series.
The captain needs to take the lead
He further added that with two more matches to go the skipper needs to assure his players their place in the side. This will most certainly give the necessary confidence to the players and they can express themselves better on the field. “Until that confidence isn’t there, you cannot score big. It will probably take Kohli to assure them of their place in the side for the remainder of the series and allow them the freedom to express themselves. When you get onto the field with that sort of an attitude, you become mentally strong and also perform better.”
According to Sehwag, the bowlers did not have enough score in hand to defend as the expected the batsmen to go past 300. “The morale of the bowlers were shot down because they were expecting the batsmen to get 300-plus, but only got 255.”
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