World Cup 2019: Important for India to get middle-order act together

Indiau00c3u00a2u00c2u0080u00c2u0099s MS Dhoni examines his bat before a net session at Leeds yesterday. Pic /PTI

Leeds: With a semi-final spot already sealed, India's main objective for their final league match against Sri Lanka here at Headingley today would be to get their middle-order act together before going into the two most important matches of the tournament.

Middle muddle

The middle-order has been India's Achilles Heel. When the top order has not contributed significantly, the middle-order has been unable to provide the momentum to the Indian innings. That has led to India not being able to post a par total on a few occasions in the tournament. The terrific Indian bowling has saved Virat Kohli's team the blushes.

Hence, it was no surprise that Dinesh Karthik said that the batsmen would like to get some runs under their belt and tick all boxes before the big clashes. "At the end of the day, a few of the batters would want to have a good hit. Obviously, at this point of time even the bowlers. It's important that they work on things they want to do. I think there is scope for improvement in all aspects of our game. We've been playing a good tournament until now, but I'm sure personally each player would have some box to tick and I think we are looking to do that," said Karthik.

Apart from chinks in their batting, another aspect which Team India would be concerned about is the way they go about their chases. Rohit Sharma's unbeaten century in the opening match helped India prevail over South Africa. When they chased for the second time - against England - they lost by 31 runs.

Karthik exuded confidence: "India have been good chasers for a long time. We're very confident of chasing. I was asked why teams haven't chased well enough. I think the reason being they're worried about the scoreboard pressure. Having said that, I think we as a team [we] believe that we're good chasers, because that's what we do day in and day out. And we're a team that actually has the ability to handle pressure very well. We'd back ourselves to chase and get the totals that we believe we can achieve," said Karthik. India will take Sri Lanka lightly at their own peril. Sri Lanka shocked World Cup favourites England at the same venue and have some favourable results during the 2014 Test here. They even tied their ODI game in 2016.

Dinesh Karthik

Karunaratne confident

"We've got some lucky games here in Headingley. If you consider the Test matches and one-dayers, we did really well. So we're trying to give it our best shot against India. We're playing on the same track that was used against West Indies and Afghanistan. So, hopefully, we can get some turn," said SL captain Dimuth Karunaratne.

Also read: World Cup 2019: Moeen Ali's father on how he made his son a champ

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