India vs New Zealand 2019: You Can't Draw Conclusions After One Odd Failure - Sanjay Bangar

It was one of those bad days at the office for the Indian National Cricket Team during the 4th ODI of the series. The swing master Trent Boult had a  wonderful day at home alongside Colin de Grandhomme, who did the trick. In between, Indian batsmen failed to make most of the opportunity, especially, in absence of Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni. However, Sanjay Bangar is confident of doing well in 5th ODI.

It was the game when none of the Indian batsmen showed their worth in the middle. They have been completely outsmarted and their inexperience was also exposed. Meanwhile, Bangar feels that it was one odd game, which happens for every team.

Have faith on the middle-order – Sanjay Bangar

Speaking of the over-dependence on the top-order, Sanjay Bangar quoted that most of the times, the top-order will finish the task for the team thus leaving very few balls to the middle-order department. He feels that it won’t help the batsman to be in the groove.

”Most of the times, out top-order will do the job. It is the only series, where the top-order haven’t got a century. So, this gave the chance for the middle-order to experience and play the situations. If you see in Sydney, you got MS Dhoni to bat with Rohit. We have rotated the players in the middle-order to give them time on the middle,” Sanjay Bangar said.

He feels that middle-order has performed more often than not. He explained a few games where the middle-order did really well for the team to make things happen for the country. Sanjay also highlighted their bowling defence as well.

”If you look at Cuttack ODI, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh did the job. Then in Indore against South Africa, middle-order chased the score on a slowish track. We have defended a low tally. Yes, some situations have been tried. It’s not that middle-order is failing. They have delivered whenever they were asked. Maybe, the last game was an aberration,” he added.

We are balancing it out:

Further, he went on to add saying that few players are playing only one format of the game. We want to bring the right kind of balance to the team by rotating the players in middle-order. He feels that the last game was a good lesson to learn ahead of the grand event.

”We are trying to balance it out. Few guys are playing one format while few are playing across the formats, which is a good thing for the team. We are trying to make a rotation to give all the players something to hit out. The last game was an opportunity to reflect. In a case, if we lose out players with injuries, the reserves need to pull their socks up. Well, we can’t draw a conclusion by looking at one game,” Bangar inferred.

It would be interesting to see how the management would cope up with the middle order in the final ODI of the series. Most probably, Mahendra Singh Dhoni will be back in the side.