3 similar issues in India's 2019 and 2023 ODI World Cup preparations
It's that time of the year, folks. Weeks to go for the 2023 World Cup. The wiggle room of testing is over with the conclusion of the ODI series against West Indies and everything done or not done on the field from now on will be put along the same yardstick.
You hit a 50, come to the World Cup! You took two wickets, come to the World Cup! That's a nice catch, come to the World Cup! Did you get three ducks in Tests in a row after five ODI centuries? You are out. Yes, we know that the ducks were in Tests but we have youngsters in the IPL waiting to take your spot, chop chop.
Four years ago this time we were done with the 2019 edition. Due to COVID-19 and the dominos of schedule-pushing, the BCCI, Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid have gotten more time than usual to do a few things - build a squad of 15, keep 10-odd as backups with at least some game time in them, and don't repeat the mistakes.
But, willingly or unwillingly, India are yet again facing familiar problems. We've listed three of them below:
#1 The No. 4 problem
The most talked about issue before the 2019 ODI World Cup has returned. At this rate, someone would soon rate it as a curse. Rohit recently spoke about how no one since Yuvraj Singh has grabbed the position and made his own.
But Yuvraj played his last ODI in 2017. India tried many options in the next year before settling Ambati Rayudu, who scored 639 since 2017 at 42.60. Still, at the last moment, seeing that Vijay Shankar bowled a bit of medium pace, the selection committee went with him although he hadn't played much in the position before.
At the World Cup, they ended up trying both him and Rishabh Pant but neither worked and the entire middle order struggled.
We might be in for something similar now. Shreyas Iyer, who had made the position his with two centuries and a similar average to Rayudu, is out injured and there's no confirmation whether he'll be fit in time for the tournament.
In his absence, India have tried KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Axar Patel, Hardik Pandya, and Sanju Samson but no one scored even a half-century until the third ODI against West Indies where the latter chipped in with 51 (41).
Interestingly, the team hasn't shown much trust in Samson and would likely stick with Suryakumar Yadav despite his indifferent returns. But what will they do if he misfires in the Asia Cup too? The situation is so dire that even promoting Tilak Varma, who is still playing his T20I first series, also looks like a good option.
No. 4 is a key position, the bridge between India's flamboyant top order and the supposed-to-be aggressive lower order. And India don't have it settled, again.
#2 Who are India's backups for the 2023 World Cup?
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul scored nearly 60 percent of India's runs at the 2019 World Cup. The over-dependency was clear every time Rohit and Kohli got out early. At that time, it was said that India couldn't give enough time to the middle order because the top three were so good, and thus they were under-prepared.
In a bid to solve this, Rahul Dravid and Co. did a stop-gap solution of shifting the entire batting order in the second ODI against West Indies before resting Rohit and Kohli. However, the only thing it did was solidify Ishan Kishan as the backup opener, which he already was, and showed how much the team missed KL Rahul at No. 5.
India struggled when Shikhar Dhawan got injured in the 2019 World Cup because Rahul had to move up the order and Rishabh Pant wasn't ready for the middle order yet. When Shankar got injured, they brought in Dinesh Karthik, making it four wicketkeepers in the lineup. The first team was superb but the backups, well not quite so much.
India will not only go to the 2023 World Cup with a recently-recovered Jasprit Bumrah but also an injury-prone lineup with no proper backups.
Who will they play if Suryakumar doesn't perform? Or if Rahul gets injured? Kishan, who has 30 runs from three innings at number four in ODIs? There's no other No. 3 option either if Kohli gets injured. And though there's Axar Patel for Jadeja, there's no batting all-rounder backup for Hardik Pandya either.
#3 Three No. 11s
Look at the 2019 World Cup semi-final again. If you are an Indian fan, sorry, but do try. Everyone remembers MS Dhoni's runout but not many remember that one of the reasons why he went for that double against Lockie Ferguson was because he didn't trust Bhuvneshwar Kumar enough to support him on the other end.
India had three players after him but none of them batted. Maybe if one of them had the ability to tonk a few when needed, India would have had a slightly better chance to qualify. And this problem continues after four years as well.
Unlike other teams considered favorites for the title, India lack depth in batting. Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, and Kuldeep Yadav are likely to make the bowling attack and none of them offer anything better with the bat than Bhuvneshwar.