India were overwhelming favourites for the ODI series against Australia, they were 2-0 up and then they lost 2-3. India were supposed to shore up their World Cup plans in the series, but after five matches the concerns remain.
However, captain Virat Kohli believes that there is nothing to worry about and the players in the dressing room are not panicking at all. He also said that the plans with respect to the World Cup remain intact and they are fairly certain about their plans.
"None of the guys in the change room are panicking, the support staff is not feeling down after this defeat," Kohli said at the post-match press conference. "Because we know the things that we were wanting to do in these last three games, but purely because now it's only the World Cup after this in the one-day competition. We as a side feel balanced, it's just that in the pressure moments, they [Australia] showed more composure than us.
World Cup playing XI is pretty much certain
Kohli also said that there will be maximum one change in the side which will be purely conditions-based, but then the playing XI remains pretty certain.
"As a side, combination-wise, we are pretty sorted condition-based. Maximum one change, you'll get to see condition-based. But other than that, the XI we want to play, we are pretty clear about it," Kohli added.
Right through the Australia series, India kept chopping and changing their playing XI in order to figure out the perfect combination. Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Kedar Jadhav and Virat Kohli were the only batsmen who played in all the matches. Also, Vijay Shankar was the all-rounder for all the five matches.
"The last three games, the idea was to give the guys on the bench and the fringe guys a bit of game time as well and just put them in those positions and see how they react," the captain said at the post-match presentation.
However, the captain was quick to point out that these changes were not excuses, but were an opportunity to test the bench strength and to raise the standard of cricket as these were only games these players could have been tested in.
"And you couldn't have tried that anywhere else apart from those three games. That is not an excuse at all because we expect to raise our standard of cricket. The changes [in the playing XI] is not an excuse. It will never be an excuse. But we used these three games to give game time to guys who we think are good enough to perform at this level," Kohli said.
