Mahendra Singh Dhoni\u2019s inability to set the pace during middle overs will remain a major cause of concern when India take on Australia in a do-or-die second ODI on Tuesday in their bid to keep the three-match series alive.<\/p>\n
Hardik Pandya\u2019s sudden suspension on disciplinary grounds has badly affected the balance of the batting order, which was apparent during the team\u2019s 34-run defeat in the opening match despite vice-captain Rohit Sharma\u2019s 22nd hundred in the 50-over format.Dhoni\u2019s 51 off 96 balls and failing to rotate the strike has brought to focus the rejigging that skipper Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri will have to fret upon.<\/p>\n
With Dhoni being slotted at No 5 even though vice-captain Rohit wants the veteran to bat a notch higher but cues from India\u2019s training session made it clear that the team is unlikely to tinker with the batting order.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s batting order did come under the spotlight at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The top three have enjoyed a fairly consistent run since 2016.It is even higher than his favoured batting positions of number five and six but batting lower down the order, strike-rate becomes paramount.<\/p>\n
Yet, Dhoni\u2019s career strike-rate at number four is 94.21, which is higher than his overall career strike-rate of 87.60, or at number five and number six .This presents a quandary, which the Indian team management might not be in a mood to sort out at present.<\/p>\n
Rayudu did well enough in the Asia Cup and in the home series against the West Indies, and both batsmen merit a longer run in their respective positions to help settle this batting line-up in the run-up to the English summer.<\/p>\n
No pre-match short-list has been announced for this second ODI, and all-rounder Vijay Shankar only arrived late on Monday afternoon in Adelaide, thus he might not be available for selection.<\/p>\n
While India coped in the Asia Cup and against the West Indies when he was out injured, playing three spinners in sub-continental conditions helped. In overseas conditions, Pandya\u2019s absence restricts the team\u2019s capability with both bat and ball.<\/p>\n
Despite his suspect action, Rayudu is free to continue bowling in international cricket, but it remains to be seen if the team management would want him to.<\/p>\n
Kedar Jadhav provides an alternative option in that light, and he could come into the playing eleven at Dinesh Karthik\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n
There is every chance that the same bowling composition as in the first ODI will be retained, despite Khaleel Ahmed being off-colour. He batted in the nets alongside Yuzvendra Chahal on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mahendra Singh Dhoni\u2019s inability to set the pace during middle overs will remain a major cause of concern when India take on Australia in a do-or-die second ODI on Tuesday in their bid to keep the three-match series alive. Hardik Pandya\u2019s sudden suspension on disciplinary grounds has badly affected the balance of the batting order, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52573","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\/52573","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=52573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52575,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52573\/revisions\/52575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}