The Indian cricket team ended the 3-match ODIs against West Indies on a winning note as they defeated the hosts in the third and the final ODI and won the series by 2-1. However, the Indian team and head coach Rahul Dravid were slammed a lot after India lost the second ODI as it was difficult for Indian fans to digest that their team got defeated by a team which hasn’t even qualified for the World Cup 2023.
While Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were rested from the second ODI, some changes were made in the batting order and even after losing the second ODI, the Indian head coach was determined to do experiments as he wanted to look on the bigger picture.
Now the Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has defended the decisions taken by the team and the coach as he stated on his YouTube channel, “India lost the second ODI, and immediately the trend in social media was – why so-and-so players played and why so-and-so players did not play. I seriously don’t understand why this outrage. Rohit and Virat didn’t play in the second ODI. Even in the first match, Rohit batted lower down the order. So the debate was around whether Rohit and Virat should have played.”
He further added, “Some of them were perplexed at how we lost to a team that didn’t even qualify for the World Cup. Many people think that India’s only job in international cricket is to win World Cup. The main reason why we consider ourselves favorites to win the World Cup is because of the IPL.”
He concluded, “ODI matches are very stressful. It will take at least two days for your body to recover. The first two matches in West Indies were played in a gap of 24 hours. Thus, there are more chances of you getting injured. Already we have so many players recovering at the NCA. Bumrah is back after a long hiatus. Prasidh Krishna is back too. So, we have so many injury problems. It seems like people are finding points to blame Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma just for the sake of it.”
India and West Indies will now clash against each other in the 5-match T20I series starting today as the first match will be played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Tarouba.
