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Middle-order must perform if India want to win World Cup

Dubai - Middle-order is the reason behind India's poor record in big chases.

Gone are the days when fantastic white-ball players like Sourav Ganguly (he didn't open in 69 of his 311 ODIs), Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina decorated the Indian middle-order.
And, of course, who could ever forget MS Dhoni - not the one that now painfully struggles to get his timing right, but the one that used to hit the best of the bowlers out of the park with a nonchalant flick of the wrists?
Now the current crop of India's middle-order batsmen have consistently failed to exude confidence.
The fragile middle-order was brutally exposed by Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy final when India's famous top-three - Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli - fell to an inspired Mohammed Amir.
India's failure to fix the middle-order problem has even made them pick the World Cup as the stage to experiment on the crucial number four slot.
And the pressure was huge on Rohit and Kohli when India lost KL Rahul early while chasing 338 against England on Sunday. Against a fine English bowling attack, Rohit and Kohli were forced to be cautious in the first 10 overs because one more wicket at that stage would have been catastrophic, especially considering the chaos in the middle-order.
That middle-order has remained India's Achilles heel and it's the reason behind their poor record in big chases.
Even former India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth admitted that without a solid support from the middle-order, Kohli and Rohit - India's two best batsmen - will have a mountain to climb in the crunch matches in this World Cup.
"There are still some problems for India to fix, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are the main run-getters at the moment and they need some support," the former India opener wrote in his column for the International Cricket Council
Now that India have lost Dhawan, the tendency to rely on Kohli and Rohit in every match could spell doom for India.
rituraj@khaleejtimes.com