India stared at elimination in the Asia Cup 2022 after their six-wicket loss to Sri Lanka in Dubai on Tuesday but captain Rohit Sharma said there are no long-term worries as they were experimenting with three seamers in view of the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia.
Rohit said the back-to-back losses in the Asia Cup – the first against arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday – will teach the team how to find answers before the ICC event in October-November. In fact, this is the first time India have lost back-to-back T20Is under Rohit’s leadership.
“I was happy with three seamers. Unfortunately, Avesh hasn’t turned up well in the fitness tests. He didn't respond well because he was quite sick. Ideally the combination we would play is four seamers,” Rohit said at the post-match presentation.
But three seamers was something we wanted to try before the World Cup. We need to find answers as a team, like where we are with five bowlers. We know now where we stand with this combination,” he added.
With two losses in two Super Four games, India’s fate now depends on other teams. If Pakistan manage to beat Afghanistan on Wednesday, both India and Afghanistan will be knocked out of the final contention. Rohit said there are no long-term worries.
“No long-term worries, we have lost only two games back-to-back. Since the last World Cup, we haven't lost too many games. These games will teach us. We wanted to put ourselves under pressure in the Asia Cup. We are still looking for answers,” said the captain.
He praised young pacer Arshdeep Singh for his impressive bowling at the death. “Chahal and Bhuvi are the senior pros and have been doing it for a while. I need to get answers from the younger ones. With the ball, it was a good effort to take it to the last over considering the start they had.
“The spinners bowled aggressively and got wickets in the middle overs, but Sri Lanka held their nerve. We thought with the bigger boundary we could use the spinners well. But the plan didn't work out. Their right-handers batted for very long.
“I thought of bringing in Hooda and using the longer boundaries.” Rohit rued that his side was 10-15 runs short while batting. “We just ended up on the wrong side, as simple as that. We could have capitalized on the first half of our innings. We fell 10-15 runs short.
“The second half wasn't good for us. The guys who were out in the middle can learn about what shots can be played. These things can happen. Losses like these will make us understand what works as a team,” he signed off.
