India's assistant coach Sanjay Bangar on Monday said India's batting line-up is still a work in progress, as the middle order needs to spend more time at the crease.
"The way our top order is batting, our middle order hasn't got the opportunities as the top order is doing the bulk of the scoring. At times, they straightaway walk into game situation. Mind you, not all of them are playing all the formats of the game so you have to give some weightage to that," Bangar said at the pre-match press conference.
"Coming straight to international cricket and doing the sort of things you are expected to do in this format (is tough), so continuity factor also plays a part."
The series is locked at 1-1 after India won by eight wickets in Nottingham, while England won by 86 runs at Lord's.
Going forward, there are still 16 to 17 games to go, we’re looking at the games remaining wherein we could look at settling the middle order slots. I am pretty sure that things are fluid at the moment. It’s not that a guy is only going to bat at a particular number.Sanjay Bangar, Assistant Coach, India
KL Rahul failed at get going in the second ODI and India might be forced to have a rethink about their middle order for this finale.
"Obviously, the plan was to have a left-hander batting in the middle-order. That is the reason why Suresh (Raina) was picked ahead of Dinesh (Karthik). We did change a bit in the T20 format, where KL batted at three and Virat batted at four. Looking at this series, and the performances that Virat has got at three, especially in the last series, he scored three hundreds versus South Africa in five games.
"It is going to be a very fluid situation. We'll see as to the players available and the fitness of the players.”
A key element for India going into the decider will be the availability of Bhuvneshwar Kumar. While Kohli, Chahal, Umesh Yadav, Pandya and Shikhar Dhawan were absent from the optional practice on Monday, Kumar was seen bowling at full tilt. He will, however, undergo a fitness test before the game.
"He's a quality bowler. We've obviously been missing our two frontline bowlers in the ODI format. Also provides us an opportunity, because there are not too many games to go before the World Cup - only 16 or 17 games. It gives us an ideal situation to test the bench strength.
Also with the upcoming Test series coming, we never wanted to take any chances with Bhuvi. He’s very critical to the team plans. He’s in with a chance to play (tomorrow). He’ll have to go through some sort of a fitness test before we can confirm his availability for the next game.Sanjay Bangar, Assistant Coach, India
With the 2019 ODI World Cup now less than a year ahead, Bangar outlined that the team is concentrating hard on preparation.
"I think the amount of cricket we're playing and the results we've got in the last 12 months or so, the team is pretty used to it (criticism). That is something we cannot control but the guys are very focused," he signed off.
(with inputs from PTI)
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