Sri Lanka Vs India 2017: I Don't Have Any Regrets Over Changing The Batting Order, Says Virat Kohli

Team India’s decision to alter the batting order in the second One-Day International against Sri Lanka on Thursday (August 24) completely backfired. After Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan added 109 runs for the first wicket in pursuit of 231, the visitors sent KL Rahul at number three instead of skipper Virat Kohli and Kedar Jadhav at number 4.

The move failed immediately as Jadhav’s dismissal opened the floodgates and in no time, India were seven down for just 131. Jadhav managed just 1 while Rahul and Kohli scored 4 each as off-spinner Akila Dananjaya ran riot to put his team on top. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Bhuvneshwar Kumar then rescued the Men in Blue by sharing an unbeaten partnership of 100 runs to take the team home.

While the collapse was certainly worrying, Kohli made it clear that he had no regrets with his decision of experimenting with the batting order in order to give other players some much-needed time in the middle.

“When you’re 110 for 1 in a chase of 230, you want to give everyone a chance to bat. I don’t have any regrets.

If I had come at No. 3, I would have still missed that ball because he (Akila Dananjaya) was bowling that well,” Kohli said. “It was quite an exciting game of cricket, fans and players must have been entertained.

“It is good for us to come through eventually. Two 100-run partnerships in a chase of 230 with seven wickets, that’s quite bizarre. This kind of thing does not happen in this game often,” he added.

Kohli also had a praise for Dananjaya who took 6 for 54 to bring Sri Lanka into the contest.

“We thought he was the off-spinner with a good leg-break, but he got four wickets off googlies. We’ll be more careful next time. Credit to him for pitching the ball in the right areas,”  the captain concluded.