ENG vs IND 2018: I Blame The Batsmen For This Loss: Virender Sehwag

Virender Sehwag has blamed the batsmen after India meekly surrendered the series-decider to England on Tuesday.

For the second game in a row, the Men in Blue failed to put up a good batting performance. After being all out for just 236 in the second ODI, India did little to make amends in the third and final game. They kept on losing wickets at crucial junctures, thus failing to stitch any big partnership.

Barring Virat Kohli, none of the other batsmen could put up a good fight. The India skipper waged a lone battle, scoring a fighting 71 to help the team post a respectable 256 for 8 in the allotted 20 overs. In reply, it took England less than 45 overs to chase down the total at a loss of just two wickets.

Joe Root (100*) and Eoin Morgan (88*) stitched together an unbeaten partnership of 186 runs to take England over the line with utmost ease.

But despite the bowlers also failing to make an impact, Sehwag put the blame on the batsmen for not giving the bowlers enough runs on the board.

“India lost because they didn’t score runs. They were 30-40 runs short of putting up a challenging total. The batsmen could have done a better job, be it anyone, Dhoni, Kohli, Rohit or Dhawan, either should have hung on to score runs so that the bowlers could apply pressure in the chase. Bhuvneshwar’s injury was still obvious when he was on field. Root and Morgan managed to negate Kuldeep this time. I blame the batsmen for this loss,” Sehwag told IndiaTV.

India had made three changes for the series-decider.  The brought in Dinesh Karthik for KL Rahul, Shardul Thakur for Siddarth Kaul and Bhuvneshwar Kumar for Umesh Yadav. However, the changes didn’t make much of a difference.

Sehwag felt that the changes made did not justify their performances on field. He also claimed that captain Kohli would receive a lot of flak for the decision he made.

“Earlier Virat said that he would experiment with the team and by dropping KL Rahul and Umesh Yadav, it seemed highly unfair. If it worked out, they would have been praised, but since they lost, Kohli will surely be criticised for the changes in the team,” he said.