Apart from Jaiswal at the top, the middle and late-order batters too found it hard to put the left-arm bowlers away, particularly in the business end of the last two ODIs, robbing India of some late bursts.
Team India on Friday went through an optional net session in Visakhapatnam on Friday with Yashasvi Jaiswal, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, and Tilak Varma sweating it out under lights ahead of the ODI series decider against South Africa.
The focus was on sharpening their skills against left-arm pacers and spinners as India summoned a plethora of southpaws from the local cricket circles.
India had their share of struggles against left-arm bowlers of late with Marco Jansen, Nandre Burger, and Keshav Maharaj stifling them at various junctures.
Apart from Jaiswal at the top, the middle and late-order batters too found it hard to put the left-arm bowlers away, particularly in the business end of the last two ODIs, robbing India of some late bursts.
Doeschate was aware of that.
"There's an element of responsibility that comes into it. Obviously, you don't want to go (hard-hitting) too early and expose the tail. We've done pretty well with that," he said
“I think the slight slowdown you saw in both games in terms of the run-rate was a combination of the wickets slowing up a little bit as the ball got older.
“And then obviously, when new guys come to the wickets, it does take a little bit of time to get settled. But we spoke about how we are going to manage the tail and how we can go a little bit harder."
It explained why India brought Nitish, Washington, and Tilak to the nets this evening as those three all-rounders are in contention to take up one spot in the lower middle-order (5-7).
There would have been some debate about India's reliance on all-rounders, but Doeschate had little doubt that all-rounders are doing a fine job for the team.
"Ideally Test cricket should have a more solid base of batters and bowlers but we feel at the moment the guys who are doing the job for us just happen to be all-rounders. It's making the best of them but that's the way it's going at the moment,” he added.
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