Mahela Jayawarden reckons that India’s last-minute decision of mixing up the batting order didn’t do the side any favours.
On Sunday, Virat Kohli’s India were beaten convincingly by New Zealand and is now playing catch up in Group B. They have to win their remaining games by a healthy margin and depend on other results to go their way.
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Jayawardene, who has been immensely successful as Mumbai Indians coach, thinks that India threw a spanner in their work. Ishan Kishan was set to replace Suryakumar Yadav due to a back spasm to the 31-year-old. This meant that India had to play one of the three openers out of position.
Instead of using Ishan Kishan or KL Rahul at number four, India chose to push Rohit Sharma at number 3, Virat Kohli at 4, Rishabh Pant at 5, etc.
In conversation with ESPNcricinfo, the former Sri Lanka international claimed that most teams’ top order (top 3) should stay fixed. He was hinting at a flexible middle order and lower middle, depending on the game’s dynamics.
He also stated that out of Rohit, Virat and Rahul, the Punjab Kings batsman is the most adaptable. Hence, KL Rahul should have been pushed down the order at number 4.
“So rather than making all those changes, they should have done just that subtle change – one in, one out – and then maybe one batter changing positions, rather than three batters changing their slots, would have made a bit more sense,”
Jayawardene said.
The 44-year-old found it peculiar that a team like India would change their batting order in a match of such importance. As it turned out, India could only score 110 runs and was thumped by the Kiwis.
This leaves the 2007-winners in a spot of bother, with 0 points after two games. However, Jayawardene hasn’t written them off yet. He stated that India will be a force to reckon with if they manage to reach the semi-finals.
