Mistakes made by Team India in 1st ODI Against Aus at Mumbai

Well it was very disappointing performance for Indian cricket fans the first defeat of the series against Australia as nothing works for team India. As I had mentioned in my last blog that toss will play a crucial role in the first match at Mumbai. So, my prediction was absolutely on spot as the pitch behavior was quite different in second innings and ball was coming nicely on bat but that was not the only factor of this 10 wickets defeat.

Let’s see what mistakes team India have made to lose the first match. First one is a lot of analysts suggested that India must give a chance to only 2 openers in playing 11 and rest one of them whether its Rahul or Dhawan but Kohli was not satisfied from critics and he made Kohli 11 which eventually disturbed the team combination. As none of them played a long innings as expected and create pressure for Virat Kohli at no 4.

Second thing was if you are going with 3 openers then you must identify the slot because you must give a chance to play maximum balls to your best player of the team which means Virat Kohli at no 3 and KL Rahul at no 4. But being a sportsman and team member captain Virat Kohli give his slot to KL Rahul that ultimately paid a huge price in terms of game loss.

We have seen a lot of examples like when Sir Viv Richards changed his number from 3 to 4 his performance ultimately starts decreasing due to score board and fall of wickets pressure. So, whatever the conditions you are facing means good performance of other players etc Virat Kohli must play at no 3 because other players can easily develop their innings around him and he himself loves to go deep and play long innings to get maximum runs in limited over cricket.

Third mistake was shortage of proper all-rounder, because by adding KL Rahul in playing 11 Virat Kohli eliminates the chance of 6^th bowler or proper all rounder who can bat with confidence. As it was expected that middle order will get exposed against a quality side and that happened in 1^st ODI nobody was able to score runs easily against a quality Australian bowling attack Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja were just clueless. So Kedar Jadhav or Manish Pandey could be a better choice in playing 11 but captain don’t have enough confidence on these players.

Fourth mistake you might not consider is Indian bowlers were completely off colored in Mumbai as Jasprit Bumrah was bowling whether too short or too full. Muhammad Shami was also struggling with line and length. Shardul Thakur looked impressive but few lose delivers in every over cost him in boundaries. So, there is might be 2 changes in playing 11 at Rajkot on 17^th January 2020. KL Rahul would play again as a wicket keeper batsman as Rishabh Pant is not in a good form plus he is suffering from concussion as he was structed on helmet with a nasty bouncer by Pat Cummins. Muhammad Shami was little bid expensive so he might be replaced by a quick Navdeep Saini.

At the end I would say whatever the conditions were and playing 11 of team India but like me you might missed MS Dhoni at Mumbai. Because of his game awareness, calmness and on field strategy to get wickets of the opposition. Virat Kohli tried everything but he was just clueless. Well best of luck to all the cricket lovers and yes like you waiting for team India’s comeback in 2nd ODI.