“Good for nothing players - all they care about is the IPL!” “Sack the coach!” “Rohit Sharma is unfit to lead the team… In more ways than one. See what I did there!” “Serves them right, for picking Surya Kumar Yadav on the basis of T20 performances!”
There has been an outpouring of anger and anguish following India’s ODI series loss against Australia. It’s not often that India loses a home series in any format - they have been unbeaten in Tests since 2012, and hadn’t lost a limited-overs rubber in four years. Perhaps, the rarity of the outcome explains the violence of the outcry. The same angry fans would have termed the series a ‘meaningless bilateral’ if India had ended up winning it, as they normally tend to.
Nevertheless, there were some interesting patterns emerging out of this series, and certain issues with the structuring of the Indian side. ODI cricket has become an afterthought, crowded out of the international calendar by premier Test contests, and T20 leagues. India will only have a handful of one-day games between now and the World Cup at home in October. What can they learn from this series to help them then?
First up, the pitches. In the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup, the talk was about extremely high-scoring games since that had been the norm in England since 2015. Yet, the late-season English wickets were slow, two-paced and brought fast bowlers into play. England, with their attack-at-all-costs approach, were red-hot favourites to win the World Cup. Yet they stumbled on the slow tracks, and had to rewire their strategy to qualify into the semi-finals after suffering defeats against Australia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Eventually, they won the final against New Zealand on a technicality after the unforgettable tied Super Over, in yet another low-scoring game at Lord’s.
It’s exactly the same in 2023 - 350+ scores have become the norm in ODIs, and we were expecting a high-scoring World Cup. But, going by the pitches in the Australia ODIs, we may be in for another low-scoring event, much like the 2011 edition. This is of course great for the game, since it will allow bowlers to shape the contests, the way Mitchell Starc, Mohammad Shami and Kuldeep Yadav did in this series.
Despite the end result, India’s bowling looked in great shape in this series, and Kuldeep’s re-emergence is a big positive. The challenge for India will be to decide whom to leave out of the bowling unit. Given the importance of batting, it’s likely that India won’t look at specialist bowlers outside of Shami, Mohammed Siraj and Kuldeep (and Jasprit Bumrah, if he’s fit in time). Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel could all end up playing. Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar too may emerge as real options. Like Yuvraj Singh showed in 2011 - the dynamism of all-rounders may dictate India’s World Cup prospects again.
In recent months, India have adopted the attack-at-all-costs approach at the top. They rightly shelved this tactic in this series, and may choose the same caution at the World Cup, if the pitches stay the same way. Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma will be disappointed with their failures here. Like Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag in 2011, Gill and Rohit have more in common with each other than is readily apparent. Both are batters with the gift of great eyes, strokeplay, and the appetite for massive 100s. It’s unlikely that India will change their opening plans for the World Cup so close to the event. Virat Kohli, too, seems set to turn up at No. 3. He will be mighty disappointed at not finishing off the Chennai chase and sealing the series win. His recent worries against spin notwithstanding, it’s unlikely he will hole out to a left-arm spinner in the World Cup, as he did to Ashton Agar in Chennai. You’d rather be making your blunders in the lead-up to the World Cup, than in the actual tournament.
It’s uncanny how patterns from 2019 are repeating for India. Back then, India went into the World Cup without clarity over who would bat at No. 4. They had moved on from Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh. They had toyed with Rishabh Pant, Ambati Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik. And then they trialled Vijay Shankar. They had so many contenders that no one was clear who had the job, and suddenly it came back to hit them in the semi-final where Karthik fronted up to Trent Boult and Tim Southee, after the top three had been blown away.
This time, India’s No. 4 woes are not self-inflicted - Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer were both being tipped for the role, and now both are injured. Pant is definitely out, and Iyer may not have enough time to force his way back into the World Cup starting XI. India turned to Suryakumar Yadav, on the back of his incredible run of scores in T20s, and that has unfortunately backfired. It’s tough to explain Yadav’s run of three first-ball ducks - the sort of freak occurrence that can happen only in cricket. He got one good ball, one great ball, and then fell in a bout of nerves the third time around. The next time SKY bats, the pressure will be even more, and one wishes he finds a safe way out of this rut. If it helps - the great Sachin Tendulkar, too, once made three successive ducks, and followed that up with a score of 8 in one-dayers. On either side of this stretch, though, he hit centuries. That is just how cricket works - the margins between success and failure are wafer thin. The hat-trick of golden ducks doesn’t make SKY a poorer player, or someone unsuited for one-dayers.
Cricket is filled with inspired selections - Harry Brook came out of nowhere, and is now the darling of Test cricket in the Bazball era. Virender Sehwag as an opener was a left-field selection that went on to alter the dynamics of Indian Test cricket. Jasprit Bumrah hadn’t bowled in a first-class game for six months before making his Test debut. SKY’s ODI selection was similar, and it has so far not paid off. Using the results of a failed experiment to lampoon the player, or the team management, is silly.
That said, SKY’s failures mean India are again stuck without a proper No. 4. Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan are two options that will get discussed, and K.L. Rahul may also step up from No. 5. The team could also consider promoting Ravindra Jadeja, which will serve to break up the sequence of right-handers at the top.
India’s largely right-handed batting line-up has been exposed by left-arm seamers too often for it to be a coincidence. Trent Boult, Shaheen Afridi, Mustafizur Rahman and now Mitchell Starc have all enjoyed success against India. India will need to find a way past the ball that swings back in. And while they are at it, they will want to see Jaydev Unadkat’s progress at the Indian Premier League (IPL) very closely. Can India dish out some left-arm fast misery on their opponents as well?
It would be wrong for the selectors and the seniors to read too much into the result. After all, India won a T20 series against Australia last year before the T20 World Cup, and still fared poorly in the tournament. And in 2019, they had lost a five-game ODI series against Australia before beating them in the league stages of the World Cup. At the end of the day, this was a tightly fought series, and Australia played some inspiring cricket to edge it.
That said - when the team reassembles for their next ODI assignment, after the IPL and the WTC final are behind them, they will do well to remember the lessons that emerged in this series.
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