Team India won the first ODI in Barbados after a hard-fought battle by five wickets to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. But it was strange to see neither Rohit Sharma nor Virat Kohli come out to bat even after India lost the first four wickets.
Finally, the Indian captain came out to bat at No. 7, and India won the game with 163 balls to spare. However, Rohit said earlier that they will look to try out some new things in the ODI series, which was completely visible in the first ODI.
Rohit, who is India’s first-choice opener and has been doing this job across formats for more than a decade now. Meanwhile, Virat Kohli is designated at No. 3. But both of these Indian stalwarts stayed on the sidelines in the first game, when the target was small.
India started their chase with Ishan Kishan and Shubman Gill opening the inning. Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya batted at no. 3 and 4. Surprisingly, Rohit even sent Ravindra Jadeja and Shardul Thakur ahead of him to bat at no. 5 and 6.
But on the challenging pitch, India lost five wickets, and with not much batting left, Rohit Sharma had to come in to bat at no. 7. In the post-match presentation, the Indian captain opened up about this decision. He said that he was not expecting the pitch to be like this, and it was challenging to score.
Rohit said, “To be honest, I never thought the pitch was going to play like that. We said we wanted to give chance to the guys. Never thought we’d lose five wickets but again it was a good to give some game time to a lot of these ODI guys who have just come in. We will keep trying those things as and when we feel like we have to do it.”
Earlier, India chose to bowl first after winning the toss. The hosts couldn’t get going and kept losing wickets. They were bundled out for just 114 runs in 23 overs. Kuldeep Yadav picked up 4/6, while Jadeja took 3/37. For India, Ishan Kishan made 52 from 46 at the top.
