India skipper Rohit Sharma gives honest assessment after losing second ODI against Australia

Australia demolished India in the second ODI as they defeated them by 10 wickets while chasing a mere total of 118 runs and levelling the three-match ODI series 1-1 on Sunday, March 19. In Visakhapatnam, Rohit Sharma acknowledged that Team India’s batters “kept falling to the strength” against Australian left-arm seamer Mitchell Starc. The veteran seamer destroyed the top order of Men in Blue at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium.

While speaking to the reporters after the match, Rohi was asked about the Indian batting’s struggle against left-arm seamers, to which the skipper replied that bowlers like Starc have such a calibre that whenever he plays against any team he will pick wickets.

“When you have a quality bowler in the opposition, he is bound to take wickets. He is trying his best to get your best players out. Whether it’s a left-armer or a right-armer, they will get wickets. The right-armers have troubled us well, nobody talks about it,” Rohit was quoted as saying as saying to the reporters after the loss.

There are a lot of thoughts that can come: Rohit Sharma

“We don’t look too much into the left-arm or the right-arm — wickets are wickets. If you lose wickets, it is a concern. We will look into all sorts of things: how we are getting out, what we need to do, how we can come up with better plans, better methods against the seamers,” the Mumbai franchise skipper added.

Starc dismissed the 35-year-old in the same over in which he dismissed Suryakumar Yadav for his second consecutive golden duck. Shubman Gill and KL Rahul were also major victims of the veteran Australian pacer, reducing India to just 117 runs in 26 overs.

The opening pair of Travis Head (51*) and Mitchell Mars (66*) each scored half-centuries to help Australia defeat India in the second ODI by ten wickets. Due to his outstanding bowling performance, Pacer Starc was named Player of the Match.

“When things don’t happen, there are a lot of thoughts that can come (in). But we try and get the best players out there in the middle to go and face this challenge. It didn’t work out today for us, maybe it won’t be the same in Chennai, who knows. You know, the last six ODIs, if I remember a lot of the top order (batsmen) got big runs. When we really need to look into it, we will definitely look into it,” the right-hand batter asserted.