Refused to be discouraged by his side's middle-order collapse in the second ODI in Sri Lanka in Pallekele, Indian fielding coach R Sridhar on Saturday said they will continue to experiment with different players in the upcoming matches.
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The Virat Kohli-led side recovered from their dramatic collapse of 131-7 to register a nerve-wracking three-wicket win over Sri Lanka in their second ODI of the five-match series against Lanka at the Pallekele International Cricket Ground on Thursday.
Speaking a day before his side's third ODI against Lanka in Kandy, Sridhar said the way the last game shaped up was a great learning curve for the Indian team.
"The way we look at every game is that we take something into the next game and the remaining part of the series. I think the way the last game shaped up was a wonderful learning curve for us. Even before the series started, we all knew that there was going to be some experiments from us going ahead over the next 18 months. It has been a great learning," the fielding coach said.
In trying to give some game time to the middle order, Kohli promoted the likes of K L Rahul and Kedav Jadhav ahead of himself in the chase.
However, the decision proved to be disastrous as the untested Indian middle-order batsmen Rahul and Jadhav fell cheaply for four and one run respectively. Akila Dananjaya was the pick of the bowlers for Lanka as he bagged six wickets by conceding just 39 runs.
But, Sridhar said that the team would continue to try different players on different slot in order to get best out of them.
"Akila Dananjaya bowled brilliantly in the last game. We take that forward, and we'll make sure we won't repeat the same mistakes going forward.We wanted give the other players a hit because Rahul hadn't batted in the middle in a one-day game so we wanted to give him that opportunity. It was just an experiment. (But) It won't stop," he said.
"We will try out different players in different slots to get the best exposure to get the best out of each player. That's the endeavour of the team management," Sridhar added.
Meanwhile, Sridhar believes that his side's ground fielding has significantly improved in limited-overs matches as compared to the Tests.
"Compared to the Test side, I think our ground fielding has improved significantly over the last three or four years. We have affected probably the most number of run-outs in Test cricket over the last few years," he said.
"In ODIs, we have been a very high-intensity fielding unit on the field. Odd errors happen here and there, that's just the nature of the beast, but we take pride in our intensity and our energy and that comes down right from the core group of Virat and Ravi bhai. They always feel the 10 best fielders along with the wicketkeeper will walk onto the field," Sridhar added.
Having already taken a 2-0 lead following win in second ODI, India will now head into the third match aiming to clinch the five-match series against Sri Lanka.
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