Adelaide: It was a rather chastening ODI series Down Under, with Steve Smith and his troops already humiliating MS Dhoni-led Team India 4-0 in the five-match rubber, but the tale ended on a sweet note for the latter. The venue: Sydney Cricket Ground. Courtesy Manish Pandey, rising to the occasion, scoring his maiden international ton, India secured a thrilling six-wicket win with two balls to spare in the fifth and final encounter, to prevent a clean sweep.
On the whole, it was a disastrous performance by the Men in Blue. Barring the batting department, both the bowling and fielding took a good beating from the hosts. The youngsters too failed to impress. Barinder Sran was exceptional, but he too along with other debutants Rishi Dhawan and Gurkeerat Singh Mann fell prey to immense pressure.
With the three T20s in sight, Dhoni and Co will look to avenge their ODI series loss and come out on top. If India sweep the series, they will vault to number one spot in ICC T20 rankings with 120 points from the current 110, while Australia will plummet to number eight with 110 points from the current 118.
There’s all to play for as the first T20 gets underway, here on Tuesday. However, there are some mistakes Team India should not repeat like they did in the ODIs.
Lack of disciplined bowling
India’s bowling was a cause of concern in the ODIs. The onus was on Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and debutant Sran. What was a reasonably promising seam force, turned out to be a mockery of sorts, with Ishant, the most experienced with 79 ODI matches, giving tough competition to his compatriot Yadav as far as the economy rate is concerned.
The situation turned out to be even more alarming when bowlers weren’t learning from their mistakes. “If they learn from their mistakes they will stop it,” Team India Director Ravi Shastri said.
“They will be disappointed, there is no doubt about that because to win a game, one or two bowlers can’t do the job. You need to bowl as a unit. The reason why we did well at the World Cup last year was we had all the five bowlers firing,” he added.
If the bowlers lack discipline, the captain can’t do much; even toying with his field won’t help. “MS Dhoni mentioned that there were too many easy boundaries. It’s not that the batsman has to earn it but they are given like freebies. That should be eliminated. Even if you cut that by 60-70 per cent, it will become an even tighter game,” Shastri admitted.
With the inclusion of experienced Ashish Nehra in the T20 squad, the responsibility, without any doubt is on the now defunct, Chennai Super Kings pacer. He wouldn’t mind if Yadav buckles up, gets his act together and starts bowling tight lines more frequently, wickets would be an added benefit. Along with Nehra and Yadav, India’s seam force also includes Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Rishi Dhawan.
Bumrah was a relief for Team India, maintaining a good economy rate and capitalising on his debuts with a good start, picking up the vital wicket of skipper Steve Smith in the final.
High dependency rate on batsmen
It can well be asserted that the batting department has been Team India’s winner right through the series. India have scored 309, 308 and 295 in the first three ODIs and 323 and 331 in the last two, which reflects a lot on the contribution of the top four, Rohit Sharma standing out with 441 runs.
Shikhar Dhawan was a bit shaky in the start but he too found his mojo back, scoring a ton in the fourth ODI at Canberra. Virat Kohli broke Sachin Tendulkar’s record. Kohli took 161 innings to reach 24 centuries, outpacing Sachin’s feat of reaching the milestone in 219 innings. Ajinkya Rahane’s burst of runs sums up a formidable batting line-up and the fine form the batsmen are in.
India cannot snatch victory from the opposition if they have to fall back on their top-order batsmen. The middle order has to chip in, the spotlight now comes on MS Dhoni’s batting skills. While that all important six in the last over of the final proved to be the turning point in the game, there was not much contribution from Captain Cool, his scores in the series reading, 34, 0, 23, 11 and 18 (in reverse order of games).
India’s reinforcement in Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina have already arrived. Ahead of the ICC World T20, it will be a good opportunity for the senior cricketers to make a strong comeback. India’s World Cup hero Yuvraj and Raina have to use their experience to help India win the T20 series and prove a strong point for themselves.
No runs from lower middle-order
Before the Sri Lanka series, India’s Test skipper Virat Kohli mentioned, and has been repeated often that while the five-bowler strategy is adopted, it places a huge amount of responsibility on the top-order batsmen to come good. But when they fail, the rest of the team’s batting strength must prove larger than the sum of parts.
In the first three ODIs, India have so far scored 67, 67 and 60 from overs 31 to 40 and in the fourth encounter, 9 wickets fell for 46 runs in the last 10 overs. The slow run-rate has reignited a belief held by some Australians that Indian batsmen slow down near a milestone, costing their team crucial runs. From an Indian perspective, the statement holds null and void.
While Shastri has said that bowlers need to learn fast, not much light has been shed on the contribution of the lower-middle order. Ravindra Jadeja, now a senior all-rounder in the team has scores of 24*, 6*, 5 and 10* (in reverse order of games).
It has now been proved how important are those final lethal blows, which have been absent throughout the series from Team India. Australia rather, have this trend going on: ‘If one doesn’t perform, the other will.’ That has well boiled down to the fact where young Mitchell Marsh recorded his first ODI ton.
As Team India make the switch from ODIs to T20s, confidence will be on MS Dhoni and his men, but Australia will start as favourites. India have to turn a new leaf and with experienced players in the side, a sense of infused energy has entered the side.
With the ICC World T20 in sight, a series win will hold in good stead. Will Dhoni get rid of his captaincy dilemmas and blossom in Blue or will yellow be the colour of the series? The action on the other side…
