Coch Kirsten wary of weak Indian bowling

Former South African batsman and current Indian coach Gary Kirsten admitted to reporters on Monday that the Indian bowling lineup is a bit to take on sides like Australia and South Africa in the absence of key batsmen.

India suffered a 90 run defeat against South Africa in the final One Day International at Ahmedabad as Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Rahul Dravid, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra were rested. The new batsmen as well as the bowlers could not take the pressure and gave away too many runs to the opposition in the final few overs. However India won the series 2-1. Kirsten said that it is not right to judge the team's strength on teh basis of the third game alone. "It's difficult to judge the bench strength by one game. I see it as an opportunity for the younger players but you cannot judge them by one performance," Kirsten said.

South Africa had piled on a massive 365 in 50 overs and India crumbled to 275 in 44.3 overs. Kirsten said that it was essential for the youngsters to be given a chance in the final one dayers, in order to assess their strengths. "We want to win every series and this does not give opportunities for the younger players to get the exposure. But this was a good learning experience for them," Kirsten said. "The turning point was when de Villiers, who played exceptionally well, and Kallis who played the sheet-anchor role, added 100 runs in the last seven overs. They had plenty of wickets in hand. From a batting perspective I'm excited by the talent but we don't yet have a settled bowling combination with nine or 10 seamers in the running," he said.

The India batting lineup makes up for the weak bowling attack, with the likes of Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik and Ravindra Jadeja proving worthy of their ODI status. However Yusuf Pathan, who was recalled to the side after a successful domestic series failed to impress in the final ODI. It remains to be seen if Pathan is retained in the side for the series following the Indian Premier League. Rohit Sharma too did not prove too effective in the final ODI, although he managed to score 47.