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Cricket Players'Reason why we were out of T20 WC was because...': Ex-India selector slams KL Rahul's decision to bowl first in 2nd ODI
India were expected to bat first on winning the toss in a bid to provide more game time to captain himself and Deepak Hooda, both of whom will leave for the UAE for the Asia Cup at the end of the series on Monday in Harare.
Team India managed to script yet another convincing win against Zimbabwe in the second ODI as they beat the hosts by 5 wickets to claim the three-match series 2-0 with a match in hand. India did have to break a sweat in the second game, unlike their dominating 10-wicket victory, but the aggressive approach in their chase helped the Men in Blue wrap up the match in just 24.5 overs. Yet former India selector Saba Karim was left unhappy with India's win against Zimbabwe on Saturday in Harare and it all went down to the decision captain KL Rahul had taken at the start of the match.
India were expected to bat first on winning the toss in a bid to provide more game time to captain himself and Deepak Hooda, both of whom will leave for the UAE for the Asia Cup at the end of the series on Monday in Harare. Openers Shikhar Dhawan and Shubman Gill's dominating unbeaten partnership in the first ODI led India to a 10-wicket win hence there were no batting opportunity for Rahul, who was returning after a long injury lay-off.
However, on winning the toss in the second game, Rahul opted to bowl first again and despite an impressive win, Karim slammed the decision reminding him of India's loss in the T20 World Cup last year.
“I was expecting India to bat first after winning the toss, but that didn’t happen. They again took the logical kind of route and this is so easy for them because if you have come to Zimbabwe. There have to be some takeaways for you as a side. The best way to do that would have been to put yourself in a difficult situation and try and come out of it," he said on Sony Sports Network after the match.
“The reason why we were out of the T20 World Cup was because of our conservative approach while batting first and it may happen leading up to the World Cup. So it’s always good to prepare and try and get yourself out of comfort zones.”
Rahul, however, made a small change in India's batting line-up and opted to open for India. But his return was ruined by Victor Nyauchi as he departed scoring just 1 run in 5 balls. Hooda also managed some game time as he scored 25 runs in 36 balls in India five-wicket win.
