Analyzing the India vs Sri Lanka Series - A Report Card
The Indian Cricket Team toured Sri Lanka in July 2024 to play three matches each in the T20 and ODI series. Out of the three T20 matches, India convincingly won all of them. However, in the ODI, the team’s performance went downhill and lost to the Island nation with the end result being 2-0. It was a historic win for Sri Lanka as India lost to them after 27 years in ODI on their home soil.
Before the start of this tour, India had only 6 ODIs to try their best playing XI for the 2025 Champions Trophy. Now as the team has landed back, only three are left with many tough calls still to be made.
This tour was really important for the BCCI, for the newly appointed Head coach- Gautam Gambhir and for the World Cup winning captain - Rohit Sharma, as they had to decide their future course of action. A lot of their present decisions will impact their performance in the mega ICC event next year, which is expected to be held in Pakistan.
Here are the few intakes from the Lanka tour:
Surya Kumar Yadav leading from the front
After India's triumph in the 2024 World Cup, and captain Rohit Sharma's retirement from the T20I Format, everyone expected Hardik Pandya to carry the baton. But Gambhir and Co decided to give Suryakumar the responsibility of leading the national team in the shortest format. A lot of eyebrows were raised, but now after the Sri Lanka tour, everyone is quite convinced why he is a gem in this format. His individual performance with his cricket bat and the team result, both came out the best. He stood up and took the responsibility whenever the situation demanded, be it in bowling the final over or batting in the super over.
Too much shuffling and unexpected roles
A lot of shuffling and unexpected calls were taken. Some bold calls were also made, some worked and some failed miserably. We all know that Gambhir is bound to do some out of the box shuffling, but who thought that Rinku Singh and Suryakumar Yadav would be bowling death overs and even pulling off a victory.
While this high risk strategy worked in T20I, it failed miserably in ODI. In the 3rd ODI, Indian team was playing with only two pure bowlers and 9 batters which were either pure batsmen or allrounders. Despite such a solid batting line up, the team succumbed to the Lankan spin bowling attack.
Unstable Playing XI and questionable team selection
Few good players who deserved to get selected were conveniently ignored by the Board. Abhishek Sharma had a very impressive start to his international career against Zimbabwe. He scored a blasting century and despite that he was ignored. Instead, the board picked Riyan Parag, and basis of this selection is still a mystery to many.
Ruturaj Gaikwad, who has been doing extremely well for the Indian Team and even leads Chennai Super Kings, too deserved to be part of the Indian squad as he has shown his flexibility and adaptability in the past, by performing at every batting position in which he was tested. But he, too, was left out from the squad.
On match day as well, the chosen playing XI was slightly shocking. It was a brave call to pick KL Rahul instead of Rishabh Pant, knowing what the latter is capable of and considering the past record of both the players.
Indian team needs to look beyond Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma
Other batsmen need to step up and they need to stop relying on their seniors- Rohit and Virat. Apart from these two, India had 6 -7 batters but none showed even the slightest bankability apart from Axar Patel. If Rohit had not scored two fifties in two ODIs, India’s condition would have been worse. Shubhman Gill did get some good starts but he failed to convert them into mighty scores. Apart from that, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul were making a comeback, the stage was set for them to showcase their talent, but both the players couldn’t rise to the
By the end of the tour, it is safe to say that the management needs to do some homework and they need to rectify their mistakes so that team India can clinch another ICC title in 2025.
Conclusion:
While it is too early to judge anything, and we understand the kind of coach Gautam Gambhir is, and that he likes trying out new things while taking risks, he will need to address the clearly visible problems within the team, avoid disrupting the current balance too much, and resolve issues quickly if India wants to dominate every game under his reign as coach.
Now that you have ready about the analysis of India's performance in the India vs Sri Lanka series, the first for Gautam Gambhir as Indian Coach, you can now read about the past coaches of India before Gambhir took reign:
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