India may have suffered a historic series loss to Sri Lanka, but there is little cause for real concern going forward.

India's loss to Sri Lanka in Colombo on Wednesday sealed a 2-0 ODI series win for the hosts. But despite the loss, there is still not much cause for concern for the Men in Blue.

The third ODI ended with a whimper for India's as they ended up losing by 110 runs in pursuit of 249 for victory. The series defeat was their first against Sri Lanka in 27 years. Dunith Wellalage, the Player of the Series, was not even born back then.

It's not a great start to Gautam Gambhir's tenure as head coach that his first ODI series has resulted in (literally) a generational loss. For fans hoping for a promising start in a fresh new era, it is easy to feel down about how it has turned out. But perhaps the reality is that India don't have a whole lot to worry about just yet.

Coming into it, India were undoubtedly heavy favourites. India had bowled out Sri Lanka for under a hundred thrice in their last four clashes. They won the T20I series relatively comfortably. Several stars were returning to action, and Sri Lanka had five fast bowlers – Nuwan Thushara, Dushmantha Chameera, Binura Fernando, Matheesha Pathirana and Dilshan Madushanka – ruled out with injuries. Adding to all this, Wanindu Hasaranga was injured after the first ODI.

However, these injuries may have ended up being a key reason as to why Sri Lanka went on to do as well as they did.

 

 

Injuries to pacers forced Sri Lanka's hand

Their pacer stock for the series was soon cut down to Asitha Fernando and the uncapped pair of Mohamed Shiraz and Eshan Malinga. Shiraz debuted in the first match, the only one where Sri Lanka went in with two frontline pacers. Coincidentally or otherwise, it was also the closest match of the three by far and India could easily have gotten over the line instead of tying the game.

What was evident from the first match was that the wicket in Colombo seemed to be quite conducive to spin bowling, and this remained the case through the series. Sri Lanka only bowled 10 overs of pace in the first match out of 47.5, compared to India's 20 out of 50 from Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh and Shivam Dube.

 

 

In that match, Sri Lanka had three frontline spinners in Dunith Wellalage, Akila Dananjaya and Wanindu Hasaranga. So did India, in Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, and Kuldeep Yadav. But what Sri Lanka also had was the off-spin of one of their batters, captain Charith Asalanka.

India's quota of a batter's overs came from Dube, a pacer; and Shubman Gill, who barely qualifies as a part-timer. Dube did pick up a wicket, but Gill's solitary over went for 14, potentially crucial in a low-scoring encounter. Asalanka, meanwhile, took 3-30 in 8.5 overs.

Five spinners in one XI: Sri Lanka stretch their advantage

The second match was where the composition of the bowling attacks changed. India went in with an unchanged lineup, while Sri Lanka went even more spin-heavy, swapping Shiraz for Kamindu Mendis and going like-for-like by bringing Jeffrey Vandersay in for the injured Wanindu Hasaranga. If they wanted, they could get now through 50 overs of spin.

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India bowled 31 overs of spin, only thanks to Rohit Sharma bowling two of them. Their pacers took 1-101 in 17 overs between them in a Sri Lankan total of 240. By contrast, Sri Lanka only needed 42.2 to bowl India out, with 35.2 coming from the spinners.

By the time game three rolled around, India had fallen in line with Sri Lanka, playing just one frontline pacer as Riyan Parag replaced Arshdeep. Sri Lanka made a spin-for-spin swap, Maheesh Theekshana coming in for Akila Dananjaya. They still had one extra spin option over India.

This time, India managed to get through 37 overs of spin, picking up six wickets and conceding at 4.3 runs an over. The problem? Siraj had a poor outing: instead of conceding at 4.5-5 an over, as he did in the first two matches, he went at nearly nine. Sri Lanka got 248, and their four spinners (Mendis did not even bowl) went on to take nine wickets in 21.1 overs between them.

So why should India not worry?

India were behind the eight ball before a delivery had been sent down. They had only four spin options in their squad, while Sri Lanka had five. Injuries to the pacers meant Sri Lanka could play all five options, and had to prepare wickets accordingly. They also had some amount of luck by winning all three tosses and largely getting the better of conditions across the series.

Of course, India are not blameless. This series was partly one for them to experiment with different batting orders and personnel, which they did. Despite tough conditions, their batters arguably did not perform to the best of their abilities against the slower bowlers and it can be argued the addition of Riyan over, say, Dube in the first two matches would have helped mitigate the lack of spin options. These are valid points, and potential areas of improvement.

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But in addition to having more spinners, Sri Lanka's fifth option, Asalanka or Mendis, was at least on par with India's fourth-choice of Riyan. This may not have been decisive on its own, but the long and short of it is India's loss came in extreme conditions against a team armed to the teeth for precisely such conditions.

Very rarely in the long term will India be hurt by the fact that their fourth-choice spinner is not the greatest, and there is very little to suggest India's batters are definitively poor against spin bowling as a whole. This series result needed a specific set of circumstances to come together in order to happen, which it did. At this point, there's no need for India to panic and sound the alarm just yet.         

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