ICC Champions Trophy 2013: Is this India's year?

With the round robin matches almost done and dealt with, we take a look at why India has suddenly emerged as the strongest contender for this year’s ICC Champions Trophy.

The ongoing edition of the Champions Trophy has thrown up quite a lot of surprises. For one, no one would have imagined Australia would perform so poorly with both bat and ball. Even though it had lost quite a lot of senior players in the past few seasons, Australia was still considered one of the main challengers for the trophy. Their performance in the first two matches in the tournament has shown its blatant lack of depth in the batting order in spite of putting up decent totals, and the bowling has not lived up to the reputation that we usually associate with Australia. This is Australia’s weakest line up in the past three decades, and the inconsistency of Watson and Clarke’s injury hasn’t helped their cause. Champions in the last two editions, one hardly expects them to defend the title successfully this year.

The biggest surprise of the tournament so far has been India’s excellent showing in all three departments of the game. India has always been a batting heavy side, mostly relying on their batsmen to set up huge totals for the weak bowling attack to defend or chase down big totals with ease. However, the fielding and bowling have been exceptionally good, the fielding more so. With the injection of new legs in the side, the fielders in the circle have been electrifying, diving and rolling around to stop the ball and hitting the target with their throws more often than not. The standard of fielding that the team has shown has surprised even the skipper, who had very openly said that his team not being a good fielding side a few years back. The Indian team has had a rollercoaster ride in the past few months, with the IPL spot fixing scandal back home and the retirement of their biggest talisman – Sachin Tendulkar. Add to that the dropping of Sehwag, Gambhir and Harbhajan and the series defeats at the hands of England and Pakistan, and we can see why India was expected to struggle this year. But instead, spurred on by the controversies back home perhaps, Dhoni’s blue brigade has been the best team so far in the tournament.

However, before we start fantasizing about the return of India’s golden days, we must remember that India have had an on-off home season that just ended before the IPL. The 4-0 drubbing of the weakest Australian side to visit these shores apart, India has had precious little success in the season. The impregnable bastions of Mumbai and Kolkata were conceded to a visiting team for the first time since 2004, and a ODI series loss to Pakistan almost cost Dhoni his captaincy.