India captain Rohit Sharma admitted that the team\u2019s middle-order is still fluid and their objective will be to identify players for the number four and six slot during the Asia Cup.<\/p>\n
India will start their Asia Cup 2018 campaign against minnows Hong Kong on Tuesday followed by the big game against Pakistan.<\/p>\n
However, the problem for India during the past one year is the lack of a settled middle-order, which was evident during the recent ODI series defeat in England.<\/p>\n
Rohit made it clear that the likes of Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu are fighting for the key middle-order slots.<\/p>\n
\u201cLot of spots are up for grabs like Nos 3, 4 and 6. All these guys are eyeing for those slots. We want to give chances to as many guys for this particular series. In this tournament, we need to seal the batting slot Nos 4 and 6,\u201d Rohit said on the eve of the opener against Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Ambati Rayudu is back in the Indian team having cleared the Yo-Yo test and he also performed well in the Quadrangular series for India A. Kedar Jadhav is back having recovered from a hamstring surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are both important members of this team. Rayudu was originally part of England series and similarly Kedar before his injury. It was unfortunate that they couldn\u2019t play for some time and I am very happy that both are back in the team. I expect them to win matches for India,\u201d said Rayudu.<\/p>\n
Rohit didn\u2019t reveal whether he was open to rotating bowlers in this searing Dubai heat but did say that performers should be given a longer run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t thought about it right now. We want to see how each individual react to different situations. At the same time, we want to give chance to as many guys as possible but also give more opportunities to those who are consistent. We would see how individuals respond to conditions and take decisions accordingly,\u201d said Rohit.<\/p>\n
Mohammed Aamir and Usman Khan in Asia Cup and Mitchell Starc in Australia are some of the left-armers that India will be encountering in their next few assignments and that\u2019s why left-arm throwdown specialist Nuwan Seneviratne from Sri Lanka has been roped in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw him in Sri Lanka and we already have two right handed throwdown experts. We will play in Australia and even in Asia Cup, where will face a few left-armers. It is a great move BCCI and is quite accurate with what he does. He is a great addition to our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was all praise for little-known left-arm seamer Khaleel Ahmed, who has been included in the team more for variation than domestic performance, which has been ordinary at best.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a great addition and has tools to succeed at the highest level,\u201d the skipper said.<\/p>\n
Having had a look at the match strip, Rohit\u2019s assessment is that it will get slower as the game progresses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wicket isn\u2019t that bad. It\u2019s going to get slower and slower as the match progresses. The first match we need to figure out the dimension of the ground and things like that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
More than Hong Kong, it is the change in climate that might bother the players, coming from the cooler confines of English weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a challenge as a lot of our guys are coming from England. Some of us have been here for four days now and we are getting used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
About Hong Kong, the answer was on predictable lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are treating every opposition equally. We are looking at what we want to do as a team and if we do that a lot of worries and issues will take care of itself. Yes, the conditions are not going to be that easy. But it\u2019s game time now and we have to focus on the match.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India captain Rohit Sharma admitted that the team\u2019s middle-order is still fluid and their objective will be to identify players for the number four and six slot during the Asia Cup. India will start their Asia Cup 2018 campaign against minnows Hong Kong on Tuesday followed by the big game against Pakistan. However, the problem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42339,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42337\/revisions\/42339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}