Twitterati troll Indian batsmen after failing to counter the swing in Dharamsala

The first One-Day International between India and Sri Lanka is currently in progress in Dharamsala at HPCA Stadium where the visitors are all over the hosts. After being inserted to bat first on a cold morning, the Men in Blue have been rocked by the seam bowlers of Sri Lanka in helpful conditions. However, the approach from the Indian batsmen has been surprising which has led to the Twitterati lashing out at them.

Both Rohit Sharma and Thisara made their debut as the captain in the ODIs when they walked out for the toss in Dharamsala. The latter won the first battle by winning the toss who chose to bowl first as the Indian captain cleared that they wanted to bat first anyway. But the pitch had some juice in it which surprised the hosts and caught them off guard. The visitors had the bowling to exploit the conditions which they did perfectly. The openers were sent back to the hut with virtually no runs on the board.

Inexperienced middle-order all at sea

India are playing without Virat Kohli, the regular captain and no. 3, in this series and clearly missed his confident presence in the middle. The debutant Shreyas Iyer and Dinesh Karthik had no idea literally when the ball was swinging as Suranga Lakmal and Angelo Mathews wreaked havoc. Karthik was finally caught plumb in front by the former which ended his miserable stay of 18 balls for no run. Shreyas Iyer followed soon after chopping on the full-length delivery which he played on the back-foot as India were reduced to 16/5 in 14 overs.

The most experienced duo of Hardik Pandya and MS Dhoni was expected to bail India out of the trouble but the former poked at the harmless delivery to edge it to the second slip. Though he was the highest run scorer of the line-up and also the only batsman to reach the double figures. Bhuvneshwar Kumar strode out to the middle as the pair which won India the second ODI in Sri Lanka came together. But he too was dismissed with a peach of a delivery by Nuwan Pradeep as India looked in danger of being bowled out for their lowest ODI total ever at 29/7.

Dhoni is still fighting it out and needs to stay to post any sort of target in front of the upbeat Sri Lankans. Twitterati praised the visiting bowlers and trolled the Indian batsmen for not showing the required patience to stay on the 22 yards.

Here’show they reacted: