Team India endured a dismal campaign in the recently-concluded 2022 edition of the Asia Cup in the United Arab Emirates.
The Rohit Sharma-led side started the marquee event with a bang, winning both their group matches against Pakistan and Hong King. However, their campaign got derailed in the Super-4 stage of the competition after suffering back-to-back defeats at the hands of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Although the Men in Blue crushed Afghanistan by 101 runs in their last Super-4 clash, it was too late by then to qualify for the final.
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According to a PTI report, the BCCI has reviewed India’s performance in the six-team tournament and batting in the middle overs (7th to 15th) was found to be a major area of concern.
"Yes, the Asia Cup performance was discussed. But obviously, more than problems, the focus is on solutions and what are the things that needs to be improved during the T20 World Cup," a senior BCCI official privy to developments told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, secretary Jay Shah, and the Chetan Sharma-led selection committee were part of the meeting. They all unanimously agreed that India's batting approach in the middle overs is becoming an issue against better teams and it was a problem during the Asia Cup.
"There is an obvious issue with batting during the middle overs, especially between 7th to 15th where we haven't done well in the Asia Cup. Obviously, the team's think-tank is aware and we have some world class players, who can obviously change their game as per team's needs," the official said.
During the Asia Cup 2022, India’s batting failed to step up to the plate between overs 7th to 15th. In the group match against Pakistan, 59 runs were scored in those nine overs for the loss of three wickets while 62 runs were scored in the second match versus Hong Kong.
In the Super-4 clash against Pakistan, it was 62 for 1. The best performance (except for the Afghanistan fixture) was against Sri Lanka when 78 runs came off those nine overs.
India’s next T20I assignment is the home series against Australia and South Africa before the team will head to Australia for the T20 World Cup 2022, scheduled to be played from October 16 to November 13.
(With PTI inputs)