Champions Trophy: Five areas where Virat Kohli and co went wrong against Sri Lanka

Mumbai: The young Sri Lankan side’s seven-wicket defeat of Team India came as a surprise to one and all. On paper, India looked invincible, with a number of players who can perform dual roles, giving a lot of balance to the side.

However, Angelo Mathews and his Lankan side capitalised on the crucial moments in the match, areas that the Indians perhaps failed to recognise during the game. Here is our post-mortem on where India could have gone wrong against the Lankans.

Were the Indian batters 20-30 runs short?

India’s total of 321 seemed massive on the face of things. The Sri Lankans managed to scale the seemingly stiff target with as many as eight balls remaining. This obviously raises questions as to how batting-friendly the pitch at The Oval was. Although it had some grass cover on it, the fast bowlers did not really find much swing, something that helped the batsmen even more, with the grass cover providing an even bounce.

While India started off in their characteristically slow manner, they did not really pick up the pace in the middle overs. This may be attributed to the early fall of skipper Virat Kohli and star batsman Yuvraj Singh’s wickets.

However, the Indians failed to keep the scoreboard ticking during the middle overs. Their run rate between the 25th and the 40th overs was 5.33. That compared to Sri Lanka’s 6.93 for the same makes it clear that the Indians were a few runs short, despite the apparent large total.

India’s failure to keep the scoreboard ticking against the spinners

Players from the subcontinent are generally known to be good players of spin bowling. This is one of the main reasons, according to India captain Virat Kohli, why India have played only one spinner against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in their first two group stage matches of the ICC Champions Trophy.

However, the Indian batters were cornered-up by Sri Lanka spinner Danushka Gunathilaka, who managed to keep things tight. In his eight overs, Gunathilaka gave away only 41 runs, at an economy rate of 5.12. Despite the fact that he did not pick up enough wickets, Gunathilaka’s ability to stifle the runs helped Sri Lanka a lot.

Poor fielding

Fielding is not something that one would expect the modern day Team India to be poor at. However, Virat Kohli’s men have shown somewhat of a lethargy in the field in the Champions Trophy, so far.

“Sometimes in the starting of the tournament, creating momentum as a team, you can misfield a few and you can get overexcited,” Kohli had said ahead of the Sri Lanka game. “There can be lapses as well, especially when the team is seven or eight down, and you know the game is going to get done soon. The complacency can come in, ” he added.

The situation does not seem to have improved, with the likes of Kedar Jadhav and Yuvraj Singh exhibiting a possible case of butter-fingers.

Is Ravindra Jadeja ineffective without Ravichandran Ashwin?

We all know about the class act named Ravichandran Ashwin. However, the younger Ravindra Jadeja has been preferred over the Chennai-born tweaker in the first two matches of the tournament, something that surprised one and all.

While his performance against Pakistan seemed up to the mark, the Sri Lankans exposed the left arm spinner. Jadeja was smacked for as many as 52 runs from 6 overs. The presence of left-hand batter Kusal Perera also negated Jadeja’s threat.

Due to Jadeja’s inability to tighten-up the runs in the middle overs, part time bowlers like Kedar Jadhav and Virat Kohli had to come in to turn their arms over.

Could Kohli have done better with his field placements?

One key area where India lost the battle is that they could not stifle the runs in the middle overs of the Sri Lanka innings. Sri Lanka were easily able to pick off the singles, while they rotated the strike, making it more difficult for the bowlers, especially during the left hand-right hand partnership between Angelo Mathews and Kusal Perera.

India had a good opportunity to further stifle the batsmen, when Perera carried on at the crease, despite picking up an injury. At this time, the Lankans could not put the Indian fielders under pressure, as Perera could not steal the quick singles, or convert the singles into doubles.

However, both Perera and Mathews found the gaps easily, rotating the strike at will, even when the former was hobbling.