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Former batter Sanjay Manjrekar is not too worried about the Indian middle order failing to fire in the Super 4 games of the 2022 Asia Cup against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav stitched together a 97-run partnership to lay the platform for the middle-order batters to fire against the Lankans on Tuesday, September 6. However, the likes of Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, and Deepak Hooda failed to capitalize on the final overs.
India could only muster 173 in 20 overs, with Sri Lanka winning the game by six wickets in a last-over thriller.
Despite two defeats on the trot, Manjrekar reckons that the Men in Blue are still a formidable side in the shortest format. Taking to Twitter, he wrote:
"India still a formidable T20 team. Batting not clicking in second half of the innings won’t be a recurring thing."
It was a similar story against Pakistan on Sunday, September 4. While Virat Kohli played a 60-run knock off 44 balls, wickets kept tumbling at the other end as India could only post 181. Babar Azam and Co. chased down the target in another last-over thriller.
"We need to learn to bat well in those 6 to 15 overs" - Cheteshwar Pujara on India's batting
Cheteshwar Pujara highlighted that the Men in Blue need to improve their batting in the middle overs as they're losing too many wickets during this period.
Speaking on ESPNCricinfo, the Indian Test batter stated:
"I think it is the middle overs. Overs between 6 to 15 and we're not finishing as well. Because we're losing too many wickets in the middle overs, we don't have proper batters batting from 15 to 20 overs. So I think we need to figure that out."
Pujara added:
"I think we need to learn to bat well in those 6 to 15 overs. Today, we didn't start well, lost a couple of wickets early on. But if you look at the last game against Pakistan, we got off to a good start but we still kept on losing wickets from (overs) six to 15.
"In the last five overs, we can't go hard because we are always five down. So it's the middle overs where we will have to work a bit more on our batting."
Rohit Sharma and Co. will play their final Super 4 clash against Afghanistan on Thursday, September 8.
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