New Zealand v India, 2020: 3 key reasons why India lost the ODI series

#2 Absence of opening stands

India has had to do without the solid opening stands it is accustomed to

One of India’s greatest openers of all time and currently one of the best batsman in white ball cricket, Rohit Sharma had to miss the entire ODI and Test series because of a calf injury and already the team is missing him at the top of the order.

India have been winning majority of games in the recent past because of the contributions of their top order that includes Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and Virat Kohli. With both the regular openers missing this series, all the onus fell on the captain, who is strangely going through some low scores which we are not used to seeing.

Prithvi Shaw and Mayank Agarwal made their ODI debuts together in the first ODI while the think tank have decided to give KL Rahul a role in the middle-order as a wicket-keeper batsman. Even though the likes of Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul have been scoring runs; India is surely missing the quality of Rohit Sharma.