England vs India 2018: 5 things that went wrong for India in the ODI series

#5 The middle order muddle

Manish Pandey and MS Dhoni

It keeps cropping up after every ODI series that India plays. The middle order for India is a game of musical chairs with the management stopping the music on purpose, giving more players a chance and therein lies the issue.

The player who is batting at No. 4 is expected to be one who is versatile enough to either set the tempo of the game after a poor start from the top order or one who can make sure there is no let up of the momentum right from the word go.

It is a difficult skill set to master and while India are not wrong to try out players, they have just not given them a good, long run at the position. Coming good in the middle order when you are not even sure how much you have to do, thanks to the in-form top order, makes things more difficult.

Dinesh Karthik got a couple of games before KL Rahul was tried followed by Manish Pandey. Two to three games aren't enough for a batsman to feel his way into the team batting at a vital position. India need to finalize a set of players and give them a good long run at a fixed position which will not only give them security about their place but also help them learn and adapt to the challenges, thereby ensuring their chances of coming good increase all the time.