New Delhi

India's assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate said that the focus to do well outside India is one of the reasons that ability to play spin has taken a back seat. Doeschate made the comments while speaking to TalkSport Cricket after India's recent ODI series loss in Sri Lanka. 

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India lost the ODI series 2-0 after the first match ended in a tie - the first ODI series loss against Sri Lanka since 1997. They lost 27 wickets to spin in three matches - the most by any team in history.

"One of the challenges I wasn't expecting and I kind of overlooked is the playing of spin by Indian batters," ten Doeschate said. "We got undone in Sri Lanka."

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The assistant coach and former Dutch player also elaborated on his thoughts, saying: "The mindset of India has been such that they've been so desperate to do well overseas. The focus has moved to doing well in Australia, England [so] that we've kind of let playing spin, which was always a strength of the Indian team, fall back a little bit."

Doeschate, meanwhile, said that he's looking forward to help the batters with spin during the upcoming assignment - two-Test series against Bangladesh and three-Test series against New Zealand - both at home.

"That's one thing I'm looking forward to helping with, getting to that position where Indians are the best players of spin in the world again," said assistant coach.

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"I don't think much of what we're going to bring is technical knowledge to these guys. It's more about mindsets, situational awareness, how we think they can control certain phases of the game," he added.

"[It's about] throwing ideas out there, de-briefing and keeping the mental space really good. That's going to be really important."

Doeschate is one of two assistant coaches of India along with Abhishek Nayar under new head coach Gautam Gambhir.