Asia Cup 2022: We are losing too many wickets in the middle overs – Cheteshwar Pujara

India’s Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara reckons the team is losing too many wickets in the middle overs, which is not helping them finish on a high. India was 110-2 after 12 overs against Sri Lanka but their middle-order batters could not add the finishing touches.

Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, and Deepak Hooda were all dismissed cheaply as they could only post 173 runs on the board. India could only manage 64 runs in the last 48 balls while they scored 48 runs in the final five overs of their innings.

Rohit Sharma had played a sublime knock at the top of the order against Sri Lanka but the rest of the batters could not get going. Rishabh Pant hasn’t been consistent but surprisingly he has received backing ahead of Dinesh Karthik, who has been doing a fine job while adding the finishing touches.

“The overs between 6 and 15 and then we are not finishing as well because we are losing too many wickets in the middle overs and then we don’t have proper batters after the 15th over. I think we need to figure that out, learn to bat well in that period,” said Pujara on ESPNCricinfo.

“Today (against SL) we didn’t start well, lost a couple of wickets early on. But if we look at the game against Pakistan, we got off to a good start but still kept on losing wickets between 6 and 15. In the last five overs, we can’t go hard. So I think it’s the middle overs where we will have to work a bit more on our batting.”

Meanwhile, India was knocked out of the Asia Cup after Pakistan defeated Afghanistan by one wicket on Wednesday.

There is no doubt that India will need to sort out their batting order as there has been a lot of change. KL Rahul hasn’t looked confident since he made the return to the team after a long gap and many pundits have raised doubts over his place in the final XI.

India will take on Afghanistan on Thursday in a dead rubber in Dubai.