Ind vs SA: Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul highlight India's middle order issues

Rishabh Pant and skipper KL Rahul both highlighted Indian cricket team's middle order weakness after India lost the 2nd ODI against South Africa by 7 wickets on Friday.

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In the post-match conference, KL Rahul, who is leading the Indian side in absence of Rohit Sharma, praised the Proteas for their performance and went on to say that the team is making mistakes in the middle order.

Calling it good learning, KL Rahul said partnerships in middle-order become crucial when we are entering a big tournament. The Karnataka batter also pointed out India's bowling in the middle overs needs to improve.

Rishabh Pant, who scored a brilliant 85 in 71 balls, echoed KL Rahul's opinion and said that the only difference in India and South Africa's performance was that the Proteas' middle order was better. 'They batted better than us in the middle and we could not get wickets in the middle', said Pant.

He also attributed the team's underwhelming performance to lack of playing enough ODI games.

India has lost 4 matches consecutively in South Africa. After winning the Test series, the host nation have now secured an unassailable 2-0 lead in the 3 match ODI series too.