The month of January saw India play some great cricket in the limited-overs internationals against Australia and New Zealand.
The comeback series win against the Aussies gave cricket fans a short but sweet three ODI series to remember. A big loss in Mumbai followed by two great games by India to win the series briefly reminded me of the 2001 Test series between these two champion teams.
However, the main focus for the India team in 2020 is to build a team that will have the best chance to lift the World T20 cup in Australia. Let us see where India is at this moment.
Indian team strategy
The ongoing series in New Zealand has given strong evidence that the captain wants a team that has six bowling options. It is heartening to see that Kohli has realised this folly of his while building the team for the World Cup in 2019.
However, I am not convinced in his choice of personnel among these six bowling options. Shivam Dube seems to be a limited stroke maker and an ordinary medium pace bowler. He is not a match-winner in either of his skills. I don’t think this Indian team has a place for such a player.
If Hardik Pandya returns on time, he will take Dube’s place. If not, I would still pick a wicket-taking Navdeep Saini in place of Dube. Picking wickets is the surest way to win T20 matches.
Bowlers win cricket matches
With KL Rahul donning the wicket keeping gloves, the Indian team has a rare chance to field a team with five high-quality batsmen, four wicket-taking bowlers and two reliable all-rounders. Most of the commentators remembered how Rahul Dravid’s donning of the gloves gave the 2003 Indian ODI team great balance.
However, that team did not have a quality fifth bowler who made the team vulnerable on occasions. But, the current Indian T20 team fields six bowling options, all of them good enough to pick wickets at any stage of the game. Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Saini, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Pandya and Shardul Thakur represent an outstanding bowling combination when compared to Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh plus journeymen bowlers to fill in the rest.
Batsmen aren’t far behind
Indian World cup team of 2019 had an Achilles’ heel in its No.4 batsman and its middle-order batting in general. KL Rahul’s outstanding batting form and adequate wicket keeping have provided Kohli with a great chance to play seven quality batting options. Rohit Sharma has taken limited-overs batting to a different level.
(Photo: DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images
Sharma, Rahul and Kohli represent a trio of batsmen who can score at will and win matches on their own. Add to this the new match-winner Shreyas Iyer. If that was not enough, add Manish Pandey, who has found a way to score runs freely once again.
Once you get past these batsmen, there is still Jaddu and Hardik or Shardul in the hut. It’ll be a tough job for any bowling team to keep this batting unit down below 160 to 170 runs in a T20 contest.
Fielding, what was that?
A team that boasts of high-quality athletes like Jaddu, Manish, Kohli and company were very ordinary on the field during the matches in NZ. One would expect them to get their act together in the upcoming matches.
However, there are some not so great fielders among Bumrah, Shami, Shardul and the like in this team, so they may need to pull up their socks.
What can go wrong?
KL Rahul’s fitness will hold the key to this team’s chances in the T20 World cup. It is his all-round ability that has allowed Kohli to have seven batting options and six bowling options play an 11 man sport. It is a rare combination.
Changing topics, what is with this idea of a four-day test?
We had plenty of commentators and players voice their negative opinion of this idea, quite unanimously one must say. Even though I belong to the same camp, I would like to remind everyone that Tests were timeless once upon a time. Up until Steve Waugh’s captaincy era, Tests produced plenty of draws, even with five days to play.
Once that Aussie team set standards on the scoring rate, other teams started to follow suit and boring draws became a thing of the past. Similarly, captains will find a way to force a result in the WTC format, even if ICC reduces the number of days to four.
Tsat
Roar Guru
Dube and Sundar are not good options at all..Neither of them are great in any aspect of their game..Dube is one dimensional batter and unimpressive bowler..Sundar, i have no idea what he is..
BARANIDARAN KANNAN
Guest
In order to avoid burn down leading upto WC Rahul needs to skip keeping duties from time to time . Backup keeping options - would you still go with Rishab or get someone like DK back ? ( based on IPL form ) I agree with you . Shivam Dubey looks like a weak link . Hope Hardik Pandya gets back fit in time What about Washington Sundar ? I don’t see much value from his batting , would it be better to pick a proper spinner like Ashwin or any other good option that emerges from IPL instead?
Tsat
Roar Guru
I agree with your comment that NZ bowling is their second string..Iyer did play well against the Aussies in the ODIs..we will have to track progress to see how this team shapes up
La grandeur d'Athéna
Roar Rookie
Bad. Sorry for saying it straight but that is how I feel. We have been down this road before. We win series after series then crash out in most important moment. We have our team settled for long time. Nothing much changed. Still our team is dependent on top three. I also do not think shardul still up to where we need him to be. Navdeep has gotten pace. But his control does not give me great confidence. This New Zealand team is far from a top T20 side. I am not being disrespectful here. They are missing almost all of their first choice bowling attack. We already have four matches where it easily could have been 2-2 against an unbalanced team that is far from full strength. Pardon me if I am sounding pessimistic but same pattern in some last years have made me very cautious to hope.
Tsat
Roar Guru
Yep, if this team played the World cup today, they may just win it..If I were opposition captain, I will look to take KL Rahul out..he is the key..
Tsat
Roar Guru
I am totally with you..Five day cricket the way it is played today is just perfect..we don't need to tinker with something that is working well from the game's point of view..If audiences in some markets are on interested in tests, the way to get them to like this form is not to reduce its duration. :thumbup:
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
Don't worry Tsat, the Indian team is looking pretty damn strong. Even in this article you are forced to resort to nit-picking to find some weaknesses. T20, by its nature, is still something of a lottery but I will be super surprised if India doesn't feature heavily in the WC. .. Even though it's been the case for a good while now it still feels slightly weird to be talking about the excellence of the Indian fast bowling. Spinners, yes, of course, but the fast bowlers? That's the obvious big difference these days. Your fast men are as good as anyone's. No free rides anymore in that aspect of the game.
Paul
Roar Guru
"captains will find a way to force a result in the WTC format, even if ICC reduces the number of days to four." And that's exactly why this suggestion is such a bad idea. I can only speak for Shield cricket but there are times when captains want a result so will contrive one through declarations. Apparently this is also the case in 4 day county cricket. It's far harder to do this in 5 day Tests, and equally hard for sides to hang on for a draw with the extra days play. A huge part of the reason why draws are a thing of the past has nothing to do with scoring rates, but everything to do with batsmen not being able to bat under Test conditions. Too many have loose techniques brought on by a glut of white ball cricket and there are plenty of world class bowlers, especially fast bowlers, happy to cash in.