Hyderabad: Team India vice-captain for the white-ball series KL Rahul felt their bowlers failed to adapt quickly to conditions and that was the reason behind their failure to win matches. India lost the second ODI on Sunday to lose the series 2-0 with a match to spare.
Speaking on the loss, the wicketkeeper batsman, who scored 76 runs and kept India in the hunt for a while, said, “I would not say Indian bowlers are struggling. These are different conditions and it is a different format. Again the challenge for bowlers is to adapt quickly. We didn‘t do that. You have to just sit back and accept the fact that the opposition also did well. We didn’t make a lot of mistakes in the match. But we have to figure out how we could win on these batting-friendly wickets.”
India failed to pick wickets with the new ball and Jasprit Bumrah, at times, looked frustrated on the field. However, the right-handed batsman said Bumrah would bounce back. “He has high expectations from himself. His presence means a lot in the team. He is always trying to figure out how to contribute to the team. He is our number one bowler. It is about time the champion player like him will come back and take wickets for the team. Also the wickets in New Zealand and Australia are so good to bat you would see top bowlers not getting wickets at times,” he revealed.
After the first match, Hardik Pandya revealed that he may not bowl till the World Cup next year. But Virat Kohli threw the ball to the all-rounder and he had a decent outing taking a wicket for 24 runs in his four overs. Speaking on Pandya’ bowling, he added, “It is refreshing to see him bowl. If he starts bowling, it takes a lot of load off the skipper and the team. He quite enjoyed himself. He loves to get into the contest.”
When asked about too many dot balls in the innings, he hoped to reduce them in the next matches. “There is always something as players we can improve on. When I went into bat, honestly we felt the team that hits more fours and sixes wins the match. We back our boundary hitting. I will personally see how I can reduce dot balls and give your team the best chance to win. The fewer the dot balls and better it would be.”
David Warner suffered a groin injury and left the field and Rahul hoped that the dangerous batsman would not return soon. “We don’t know how bad his injury is. It would be nice if he gets injured for a long time. I would not wish anything like that for a player. But it would be good for us.”
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