Former India captain Ajit Wadekar feels the just-concluded One-Day International series loss to Australia was largely because of "collective batting failure".
"We played well in patches in the series but were not consistent enough. There were a couple of close games we should have won. And, especially with Australia losing key players one after the other, this was the best chance for India to beat them," he told rediff.com.
Wadekar was livid about the showing of the younger players in the team, saying they were unable to deliver when it mattered.
"The youngsters are not coming good. They are more than happy with thirty or forty-odd runs. They should learn from seniors like Sachin Tendulkar how to build an innings and value your wicket.
"The World Cup is not so far away, so we got to build the team keeping that in mind. We should have a good mix of both experience and young players," he added.
Australia secured an unassailable 4-2 lead going into the seventh and last match of the series in Mumbai, which was washed out following incessant rain on Wednesday.
Asked what went wrong for India, Wadekar said the team missed the services of Zaheer Khan.
"Zaheer has been our premier bowler and we missed him badly in the series. The bowlers did okay in the series considering the tracks that they got. Nehra had a good comeback."
Quizzed about Ishant Sharma's poor form, he replied: "Ishant is a really good prospect. He is struggling at the moment, but he will bounce back.
"He was the quickest when he was in Australia and the Aussies were also wary of his pace.
"The same thing happened with Irfan Pathan; they could have looked after him properly. So, it's up to the coach and selectors to ensure that he [Ishant] is preserved."
He lauded Australia for the fighting spirit they displayed despite limited resources.
"The Aussies have tremendous bench strength. We have to give credit to their players, as, on paper, India looked a far stronger team than the visitors. [Michael] Hussey, [Shane] Watson and [Ricky] Ponting were really inspirational."
He reiterated the fact that India needs to follow a rotation policy with the amount of cricket that's being played.
"It's too much of cricket, isn't it?" he asked.
"What India needs to do is follow the same rotation policy that the Aussies follow. That will reduce the burden on many senior players and we will have a good pool of players to choose from as well."
