As Australia took the Indian team to the cleaners in the second match of the three-match ODI series between the two teams, Indian all-rounder KL Rahul feels that it is essential for the bowlers to adapt quickly. Moreover, he believes that taking regular wickets is essential in the game.
“We did not adapt quick enough. It is learning for our bowling group to adapt quicker. It is important to get wickets at regular intervals in white-ball cricket. We have to learn how to take wickets and as a batting group we have to build long partnerships,” KL Rahul said while talking about the match in a post-match conference.
Australia clinched victory in the second match on Sunday by 51 runs. By defeating team India consecutively for the second time, they have now acquired an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the series.
After losing the toss to the hosts, the visitors bowled first. With Steve Smith’s century, who seems to be in his finest form at the moment, and five half-centuries from their four top-order batsmen- David Warner, Aaron Finch, Marnus Labuschagne, and Glenn Maxwell, the hosts set up a monumental target of 390 runs. And they only suffered a loss of four wickets which barely affected their batting line-up.
The bowling from the Indian side seemed to inflict little damage. Additionally, the battling line-up of the visitors crumbled real quick against the bowling attacks of the Australians.
Only skipper Virat Kohli (89) and KL Rahul (76) managed to contribute a commendable number of runs to their scorecard. As a result of losing 9 wickets, the team could not manage to score beyond 339 runs.
KL Rahul being fully aware of their weaknesses and the points of improvements believes it is an opportunity to to work on them.
He said, “There is not a lot that we have done wrong so we need to get better with our skills and execution and know what we can do better in such wickets.
“There is always something as a player you can work upon. I will personally sit back and see how I can reduce those dot balls. You want to get better as a player and play better knocks and give your team the best chance to win. The fewer the dot balls you play the better the position of the team,”
Rahul also backed up teammate Jasprit Bumrah, who seemed to be out of rhythm in the matches.
“We all know Jasprit is quite fiery and he is very competitive on the field. We know the value of Jasprit. We know that a champion player like that will come back and deliver and get wickets for us.”
An optimistic and confident Rahul pointed out that there are still a lot of matches to go and bounce back. And the team is eagerly looking forward to it.
“It is still a long way for the series though we have lost the first two games. But we are doing a lot of things right and we just need to learn how to bowl better in such beautiful batting wicket and that is the challenge for us and the boys are looking forward to it,” he added.
India will now try to grab victory in the final match of the series. The last match of the ODI series is on December 2.
