From Ajinkya Rahane's batting to Virat Kohli's dismissals, a look at what India learned from the ODI series in the West Indies

Sport360 staff 18:31 07/07/2017
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  • The scoreline says India won the five-match ODI series against the West Indies 3-1.

    But it was far from smooth sailing for the visitors as the Caribbean side put up a sustained fight, especially in matches three and four.

    Here, we look at what the Indians learned from the one-day series.

    What did you make of India’s performance in the series?

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    RAHANE IS RELIABLE

    Ajinkya Rahane is a back-up top order option at the moment behind the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and even KL Rahul – who is recovering from injury. But the Mumbai batsman grabbed the opportunity to open in the West Indies with both hands and didn’t let go.

    In the five matches, he had scores of 62, 103, 72, 60 and 39. He handled the conditions better than anyone, looking in control on wickets that were generally slow and offered indifferent bounce.

    KOHLI’S WOES AGAINST THE SHORT BALL

    The India skipper scored a century in the final match to go with his 87 in the second but his dismissals in the third and fourth stood out for their similarity.

    Kohli was out attacking the short ball after West Indies bowled more than a handful of bouncers and the 28-year-old admitted he had to cancel that shot out in the fifth ODI until he was set. Opposition bowlers now have a template to work with when they next face him.

    NO ‘EXPERIMENTATION’ FOR NOW

    The series was seen as an opportunity for the Indians to try out new players and combinations. But the team management had other ideas. In fact, Rishabh Pant – who is seen as the long-term replacement for MS Dhoni – didn’t get a single game while in the batting department, the Indians didn’t change the order.

    Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya mainly remained rooted at number six and seven in the order. At least every main bowler was given a proper workout, be it Mohammed Shami or Kuldeep Yadav.

    IT’S NOT LOOKING GOOD FOR YUVRAJ

    The biggest issue for the Indian team looking ahead to the 2019 World Cup is the middle-order and whether both MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, who are over 35 already, fit into the scheme of things.

    The wicket-keeper, however, looks on a lot firmer footing with scores of 78 not out and 54, even though his second fifty was at a strike rate of less than 50 and failed to win the game. Yuvraj played a part in three games, made a top score of 39 and injured his hamstring. Dinesh Karthik played the last two matches and hit a fifty in Jamaica.

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