India must improve death bowling – Gambhir

ESPNCricinfo: Gautam Gambhir has said India need to improve their bowling in the last ten overs of an ODI if they want to win consistently. India conceded 90 and 97 to Sri Lanka’s lower-middle order from overs 41 to 50 in the first and third games of this series, and needed the batsmen to provide buffer on both occasions. The one time the batsmen failed, India lost meekly in the second ODI.

“We just didn’t bowl well in the last 10 overs,” Gambhir said after the five-wicket win in Colombo. “You can’t afford to give 95-odd runs in the last ten overs, when they have literally two new batsmen at the crease, Angelo [Mathews] and Jeevan Mendis. Sometimes when you give 60-70 that is still tolerable, but 95-[odd is] too many runs when the [batting] Powerplay is over.

“At one stage we were thinking we can contain Sri Lanka to 250 and then chase it down, but there is a difference when you think to contain someone to 250 and then the opposition gets to 287 [286], that is a huge margin. If we want to be a quality side in the future and if we want to win consistently we just need to work on the last ten overs, the way our bowling is. We have given a lot of runs in the last 10 overs in the past as well. We will learn from our mistakes very soon.”

While India had the cushion of 314 runs in the first ODI, today’s profligacy left their batsmen needing to achieve the highest successful chase ever against Sri Lanka at home, which they managed to in the last over. Gambhir led the way with a breezy century that kept India going despite the early departure of Virender Sehwag and slow thirties from Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni. Gambhir said it was important that one of the top three batsmen batted long.