Former cricketer Aakash Chopra has expressed his surprise at the number of changes made by the Indian side against Sri Lanka for the third and final ODI of the series. He feels the alterations made don’t serve any real purpose in terms of future planning.
India sealed the series 2-0 after a comeback win in the second ODI. Although the last match is a dead rubber, World Cup Super League points are at stake for both sides. India has already qualified for the 2023 ODI World Cup however since they are the host nation.
This allowed them to make plenty of changes for the final game. This was not well received by Aakash Chopra. He thought such drastic changes put unnecessary pressure on the youngsters in the squad. Talking to ESPNCricinfo, Chopra stated:
“To be honest, it baffles me that India has made so many changes. Because if it were to be the main side, where there is Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, etc, you make those changes it’s understandable.”
“But you are talking about young kids. They are just cutting their teeth into international cricket – Ishan Kishan just made his debut two matches ago, Prithvi Shaw has played as many as four One-Day games. There isn’t a lot of cricket these guys have played and now you want to change them to try somebody else. What will you find out in one game? I don’t know.”
“If they are not injured, at least give them three games” – Aakash Chopra
Chopra continued by opining that the players need to be given more time. Although this is true to a certain extent, it isn’t feasible to have the same players go on for most of the games.
“If you played somebody first up and if they haven’t done something exceptionally wrong, or if they are not injured, at least give them three games. It’s not a five-game series where you want to make wholesale changes in the dead rubber,” he said.
Aakash Chopra concluded by predicting a 3-0 whitewash for India after the third ODI. “You generally get whitewash done before Diwali and Diwali has some relation with Lanka as well,” he said.