The Virat Kohli-led Indian side is too heavily reliant on its captain and his deputy Rohit Sharma, team's two best batsmen, reckons veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh.
Harbhajan believes others in the team are lacking confidence, which is reflected in their poor performances on occasions when India's top-order collapses.
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"The current Indian side is dependent on Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. The side does not have much confidence, there are good players but once Virat and Rohit get out, 70 per cent of matches we tend to lose. There is a lack of self-belief," the 39-year-old told Rohit during an Instagram live chat session.
The turbanator cited the example of India's 2019 World Cup campaign in the UK to stress his point. India raced towards the semi-final on the back of its top-order batting and overall bowling quality, but when the likes of Rohit, Kohli failed in the knock-out versus New Zealand in Manchester, the team's middle-order got brutally exposed in a crushing defeat.
"In our times, we had a lot of trust and belief. If the top three of the current Indian side are dismissed, then we have problems in winning matches, you need to find more watch winners. You had a good World Cup, but then you lost in the semi-finals, if you had 3-4 guys performing, we would have won the World Cup," said Harbhajan.
Rohit agreed that the team needs to properly rebuild its middle-order by better identifying the players who are likely to serve India long and giving them a consistent run.
"We keep talking about backing players (for the middle-order) in the team so that they can cement their places. There is a lot of pressure on the captain and coach to pick the players and back them," he said.
"It is important to give them enough chances. We have heard about how dada (Sourav Ganguly) backed you (Harbhajan) and Yuvi (Yuvraj Singh)," Rohit added. "How they backed you and then you delivered. The same way we should do it, the process is on. Whoever is being backed at the moment will get adequate chances."
(Inputs from ANI)
