Mitchell Starc led the foundation of Australia’s resounding 10-wicket victory over India in the second game of the three-match ODI series in Visakhapatnam on Sunday (March 19).
The left-arm pacer ran through the Indian batting line-up, returning with a five-wicket haul (5/53) to bundle out the hosts for a paltry 117 in 26 overs.
Shubman Gill (0), Rohit Sharma (13), Suryakumar Yadav (0), KL Rahul (9) and Mohammed Siraj (0) were the victims of Starc as he wreaked havoc with the new ball. The lanky fast bowler also troubled the Indian top-order in the opening ODI, picking three scalps in the visitors’ five-wicket defeat.
Despite this, India skipper Rohit refused to read the Indian top-order batters’ struggle against Mitchell Starc as a pattern of failure against left-arm pacers.
In the past, left-arm quicks like Mohammad Amir, Shaheen Afridi and Trent Boult have dented India in crucial games with their vicious spells.
“When you have a quality bowler in the opposition, he is bound to take wickets. He is trying his best to get your best players out. Whether it’s a left-armer or a right-armer, they will get wickets. The right-armers have troubled us well, nobody talks about it,” Rohit told reporters after the second ODI.
“We don’t look too much into the left-arm or the right-arm — wickets are wickets. If you lose wickets, it is a concern. We will look into all sorts of things: How we are getting out, what we need to do, how we can come up with better plans, better methods against the seamers.”
India had two left-handers in the batting line-up, Ravindra Jadeja and Akshar Patel, who could have been sent up the order to face left-armer Starc but Rohit said such a move could have gone either way.
“In hindsight, if you look at it, it is a possibility. It is a game where something can work for you and something will not. If Jadeja or Akshar or any other left-hander would have gone up the order and got out, then things would have been spoken a little differently. That is how this game works, I know that,” the captain said.
“When things don’t happen, there are a lot of thoughts that can come (in). But we try and get the best players out there in the middle to go and face this challenge. It didn’t work out today for us, maybe it won’t be the same in Chennai, who knows,” he added.
Rohit Sharma acknowledged that the top order has struggled “a little bit” in the first two ODIs.
“You know, the last six ODIs, if I remember a lot of the top order (batsmen) got big runs. When we really need to look into it, we will definitely look into it.”
The series-deciding third ODI will be played at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Wednesday (March 22).
