PTI
Chennai
Bogged down by top-order brittleness and under pressure after a heavy loss, defending champions India would need every ounce of resilience they can muster when they take on a tricky Zimbabwe in their second Super 8 match of the T20 World Cup on Thursday.
Winning this contest by a big margin is critical to India’s existence in the ICC showpiece given the beating their net run rate (-3.80) took after the 76-run defeat to South Africa on Sunday.
But for that, India need to fix the issues surrounding the opening and No.3 slots.
Coming into this World Cup, the reigning champions rode on excellence from Ishan Kishan and Abhishek Sharma at the pole position to quell the bilateral challenges against South Africa and New Zealand at home.
But light seems to have gone out of Abhishek’s batting after a stomach infection. A combination of dull pitches and off-spinners, who took the ball away from his hitting arc, has reduced the left-hander’s firepower.
He is certainly a better batter than his current numbers — 15 runs from four matches at an average of 3.75 made at a strike-rate of 75.
However, the real question is can he set aside the desire to play his natural game, and grind some runs against his name?
It may not look flashy, but one needs to look ugly, at times, to win.
The changes that England skipper Harry Brook, a batter in Abhishek’s mould, made to adapt to the decks got him a match-winning hundred last night in Pallekele. Watching him will perhaps give the Indian opener an example to follow.
Playing spin was never Brook’s forte, but the Yorkshire man sunk Pakistan’s spin armada at Pallekele, superbly pacing himself between defence and aggression.
Tilak Varma too needs a course correction, but of a different nature.
One can argue that Abhishek’s lean patch has necessitated Tilak to play a more supportive role to Kishan, who continues to impress with a strike-rate of 193 amid the top-order ruins around him.
But even then, a strike-rate of 118 is too less for a batter playing in the Power Play segment as per the modern T20 template. He generally strikes around 141 in T20Is.
Suryakumar Yadav has 180 runs but those have come at 127, way less than his T20I career strike-rate of 161. It has left Kishan with the job of doing all the heavy-lifting by himself.
Had it not been for the acceleration given by Shivam Dube and Hardik Pandya, India would have struggled to reach par totals in a couple of matches at least.
The opposition teams have cleverly fielded off-spinners in the Power Play against the three left-handed batters — Kishan, Abhishek and Tilak — to reduce their scoring opportunities.
