Indian captain Rohit Sharma shared his disappointment after losing the second ODI against Sri Lanka by 32 runs at the R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo on Sunday. Rohit was not happy with the team’s batting effort after they were skittled out for 208 while chasing 241 runs.
After 17 overs, India was cruising at 116-1 with Rohit adding 97 runs for the opening alliance with Shubman Gill off just 81 balls. However, as soon as Jeffrey Vandersay was introduced into the attack by Sri Lanka skipper Charith Asalanka, India crumbled like a pack of cards.
Vandersay accounted for the top six Indian batters and returned with impressive figures of 6-33 in his quota of 10 overs. Meanwhile, Rohit scored 64 runs off just 44 balls and said he doesn’t want to compromise on his intent and had no regrets after getting dismissed while trying to play the reverse sweep. India’s middle order once again failed to deliver the goods and it led to the team’s downfall.
Rohit Sharma said in the post-match presentation, “When you lose a game, everything hurts. It’s not just about those 10 overs. You have to play consistent cricket and we failed to do that today. Little disappointed but these things happen. You got to adapt what’s in front of you. With left-right, we felt it’ll be easier to rotate strike. Credit to Jeffrey, he got six wickets. The reason I got 65 is because of the way I batted. When I am batting like that, there’s a lot of risks taken. If you don’t cross the line, you always feel disappointed. I don’t want to compromise on my intent.”
After Rohit Sharma’s dismissal, India could not put up a fight with the bat, barring Axar Patel scoring a run-a-ball 44. Rohit added there will be discussions on their middle order batting woes.
Rohit concluded, “We understand the nature of this surface, it gets really tough in the middle overs. You have to try to get as many as possible in the powerplay. We weren’t good enough. Don’t want to look too much into how we played. But there’ll be talks about our batting in the middle overs.”
The third ODI between India and Sri Lanka will be played at R.Premadasa Stadium, Colombo on Wednesday.
