India”s seven-wicket win over Sri Lanka at Headingley and Australia”s ten-run loss to South Africa at Old Trafford, Manchester on the final day of the league phase of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 meant that India finished on top of the points table with seven wins, one defeat, and one no-result.
The Virat Kohli-led side has been incredibly consistent in the tournament and is being touted as one of the favourites to win the World Cup. India”s top three batsmen and the pace bowlers have been the star performers so far, and it is needless to say that these players will hold the key to success when they take on New Zealand in the first semi-final at Old Trafford in Manchester on July 9, 2019.
Still, there remain a few areas of concern for the ‘Men in Blue”, which have surfaced in the course of their campaign from time to time.
In this article, we cite five such worries that India must overcome if they are to win their third World Cup title:
1. The middle-order
The performance of India”s middle-order has been inversely proportional to that of its top three in the tournament so far.
While Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have produced the kind of consistency that is generally expected of them (with 647 and 442 runs respectively), KL Rahul—who was promoted up the order after Shikhar Dhawan”s forced exit from the tournament owing to a left thumb fracture—is gradually coming into his own, as is evident from his measured 92-ball 77 against Bangladesh in Birmingham and his 118-ball 111 against Sri Lanka at Headingley.
The Indian middle-order batsmen, on the other hand, have performed sporadically, and on more occasions than one, have struggled to capitalise on the platform laid by the top-order batsmen. As many as three batsmen have been tried at number four, but India has yet to find a satisfactory solution to their ‘number four’ conundrum.
While Rishabh Pant has shown promise in the limited opportunities he has received in his brief ODI career, he is still fairly unexposed to the pressure and challenge of a World Cup knockout game.
M.S. Dhoni’s tally of 223 runs from eight matches at an average of 44.60 and a strike-rate of 93.30 may not make for poor reading, but questions have been raised over his inability to shift gears at the back-end of the Indian innings, when scoring at 8-9 runs per over at the death is the norm of the day.
With Kedar Jadhav having struggled to hit the big shots and Dhoni grappling to rotate the strike against the spinners in the middle overs, the pressure of accelerating from one end has often got the better of Hardik Pandya, who has looked in good touch at this World Cup.
It remains to be seen if Pant, Dhoni, Pandya and Dinesh Karthik (who was brought into the side in place of Kedar Jadhav in the Bangladesh game) manage to bat sensibly and provide the finishing thrust necessary to post a big total in the crucial knockout stage of the tournament.
2. Have the spinners lost their mojo?
When the Indian team started investing in the wrist-spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav post their loss to Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy final, it seemed like a risky venture since it would’ve resulted in Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja—two automatic selections in the Indian XI up to that point—losing their permanent spots in the ODI team to the two fairly inexperienced wrist-spinners.
However, the move paid off perfectly well for the team management with both Chahal and Kuldeep developing into potent match winners for India in the shorter formats.
Be it keeping things tight in the middle overs by stemming the flow of runs, or bamboozling the non-subcontinental players, who are generally not adept at picking spinners by watching the hand, with their bagful of tricks, the pair has proven its indispensability series after series in recent times.
The 2019 World Cup though hasn’t been a rewarding tournament for spinners in general, and it is no surprise therefore that India”s spin twins have had a relatively quiet tournament.
None of the spinners from the ten participating teams feature among the top fifteen wickets takers of the tournament, and while the pacers merrily sit atop each and every chart for bowlers, spinners, in general, have been left to ruminate on the loss of their mojo and fear the possibility of getting axed.
Compared to the pacers who have picked up a total of 464 wickets in the tournament so far, the spinners have taken just 129 scalps. Even the differences in the averages and the strike-rates have been massive. While pace accounts for an average of 30.23 and a strike-rate of 32.3, those of spin read 51.45 and 57 respectively.
This stark contrast between pacers and spinners is also reflected in the performances of the Indian bowlers. Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami have picked up a total of 31 wickets between them prior to the knockouts, whereas Kuldeep and Chahal have managed together 17 wickets at an average of 45.30.
In fact, one of the primary reasons why India suffered a 31-run defeat to England in Birmingham in the group stage was because the two spinners ended up conceding 160 runs off their twenty overs.
Given the kind of support the two spinners enjoy from the team management, it is unlikely that India would field three specialist seamers in the knockouts.
Both Kuldeep and Chahal may be persisted with, or one of them could be seen making way for left-arm orthodox spinner Ravindra Jadeja, who returned with tidy figures of 1/40 against Sri Lanka.
3. Fielding
While India dropped only four catches in the league phase—the least among all the teams in the tournament—there is still significant room for improvement as far as ground fielding is concerned.
Apart from Kohli, Hardik Pandya, Jadeja and Rohit Sharma to a certain extent, there are not too many agile movers in this current Indian squad who can hurtle themselves around on the spur of the moment within the thirty-yard-circle, or dive full length to save a certain boundary in the outfield.
In the knockouts, where the margin of difference separating the winner from the loser could be as low as 10 to 15 runs, fielding will be as decisive a factor as batting and bowling in terms of the eventual outcome of the games.
Since India is currently playing with three specialist wicket-keepers in the XI, it is imperative that the best fielders in the squad like Kohli and Jadeja are deployed in the right positions and remain extra vigilant.
India’s fielding coach R. Sridhar has admitted that Rishabh Pant needs to improve as an outfielder and enhance his throwing technique. Under such circumstances, Ravindra Jadeja”s inclusion for the knockouts could provide that much-needed edge to India’s fielding.
Interestingly, even though he has played just one game in the tournament so far, he saved 13+ runs in the field as a substitute fielder only, which led experts and fans alike to call him cricket’s own version of the ‘super sub”.
4. Captain Kohli’s Conversion Rate
For a man whose fifty to hundred conversion rate of 43%, the third best in the history of ODI cricket (only players with 2000+ runs considered here), not getting a single hundred despite going past fifty on five consecutive occasions at this World Cup must be a tad worrisome.
After all, this is the benchmark the Indian captain has set for himself. It is true that because Rohit Sharma is batting deep into the Indian innings and with KL Rahul also having struck good form, Kohli hasn’t had too many overs to bat and work his way through to a hundred.
Kohli himself though doesn’t appear to be too ruffled by this situation. Responding to Ian Bishop”s question whether he is at all worried about his inability to convert his fifties into hundreds in the tournament at the toss before the Bangladesh game, an upbeat Kohli said, “I don”t need to sit down and assess how to convert those (the fifties into hundreds), I have done that a lot of times in the past.
I”m really enjoying the way I”m batting at the moment. It”s just about contributing to the team.” In the pre-match press conference before India”s semi-final tie against New Zealand, Kohli made clear that his role at this World Cup is primarily to hold up one end and ensure that the scoreboard keeps ticking along; personal milestones, as he has always maintained, become secondary to the team”s cause.
But in case one of the openers falls early in the knockouts, the onus will be on Kohli to steady the Indian ship and maybe give himself a chance to get to that elusive hundred in the process.
5. Shami’s Death Bowling
The Indian fast bowlers—especially Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami—have been in stellar form in this tournament. While Mohammed Shami has regularly fetched India early breakthroughs, Bumrah has been the MVP as far as the bowling department is concerned, given his ability to take early wickets with the new ball, break partnerships in the middle overs, and nail yorkers at the death to break batsmen’s defences.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, too, has done well in the few opportunities that have come his way. That said, Shami”s tendency to leak runs at the death is a concern for India heading into the knockouts.
Notwithstanding his amazing wicket-taking form in the tournament (14 wickets from 4 games at an average of 13.79), his figures against England and Bangladesh in the death overs took a beating, despite Jasprit Bumrah keeping things tight from the other end.
Against England, he started off well but ended up conceding 44 runs off his last three overs, which in turn helped the English lower-order batsmen propel the total to 337/7. Against Bangladesh, he produced even worse figures, giving away 68 runs off only nine overs.
For India to do well in the knockouts, the fast bowlers must show the nous to keep things tight in the end overs, when the opposition batsmen look to swing their bats at almost everything, and with there being very little to separate the top four sides, the results of the knockout games may well hinge on these contests between big-hitters and bowlers at the death.
Shami, who was left out of the playing XI for the Sri Lanka game, is certain to return for the semi-final, but it will be interesting to see if Kohli entrusts him or resorts to the more successful pair of Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar for bowling at the death.
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