West Indies shocked India by losing by a margin of 6 wickets in the second ODI of the three-game series, a series which was expected to reap a result on Saturday night in Barbados is now in the last stages. While Virat Kohli and captain Rohit Sharma were rested and India barely survived in the series opener earlier on Thursday thanks to the bowlers, the batters again struggled, drawing criticism from experts and fans on the experiments that, in their opinion, made little sense.
Rahul Dravid, the head coach, gave an explanation for resting the two senior batters for the second ODI game following the defeat on Saturday. If India’s attempt to chase down 115 runs had not failed, Rohit and Kohli would have hardly batted in the series opener at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown.
As the World Cup preparations draw to a close, both of the game’s veterans made room for the younger batters to play and warm up. However, subsequent wickets saw Rohit enter at No. 7 and make sure Kohli, at No. 8, wasn’t needed. On Saturday, the two were put on the sidelines, Hardik was named captain, and the young batting lineup was given complete freedom to take advantage of the situation.
This was our last chance to try some of our players: Rahul Dravid
But much as in the first game, no other batters showed up, and India managed a disgraceful score of 181, which was chased down by West Indies in 36.4 overs for the loss of four wickets. Ishan Kishan, who got his second consecutive fifty, was the only batter to show up.
After the game, the former India legendary batter addressed the media and said that the West Indies series was their final opportunity to try out these new things before the Asia Cup and World Cup. Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul’s comeback from injury is questionable, therefore the management had to give the backup options some playing experience to keep them match-ready in the worst-case scenario.
“Honestly, this was our last chance to try some of our players. We have got four of our players who are injured and are in the NCA. With days to go for the Asia Cup and then the World Cup, we are kind of running out of time in a lot of ways. And we are hoping that some of them will be for the Asia Cup and the World Cup but we can’t take those chances. We have to try out other people and give them chances so that in worst case scenario they at least have game time behind them,” Dravid said speaking to the media.
