India tour of England 2018: Virat Kohli and the Indian selectors may have far greater problems than just an ODI series loss
India’s performance in the recently concluded ODI series against England has rung a few bells in the ears of the fans, and rightfully so. Within the space of 4 to 5 days, the entire impression of this team has changed.
Sometimes it is not just about defeat, but the manner of defeat. In professional sport, the latter is often taken into consideration. And that needs to be put in context with the current Indian team.
This series loss is not just based on what took place this week, but a build-up of 5 to 6 years of extreme ignorance. The stats say it all; India’s top 3 batsmen (Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli) have contributed to over 60 percent of the team’s runs in the last few years.
Now, we can sit and glorify these players for their contributions, which is absolutely fine. But what people are overlooking is the performance of the rest of the batting lineup in the same period of time.
In fact, when your top order is doing this well, it’s the job of the middle order to step up on those rare occasions when there is a collapse. You’ve got to prepare and give more importance to those contingencies. As a middle order batsman, coming in to bat, you won’t always have the luxury of runs on the board.
But time and again we’ve seen that nobody, apart from Dhoni on occasion, stands up in these situations - be it the Champions Trophy 2017, the WorldT20 2016, or this series. What this can be narrowed down to is the selectors’ inability to look beyond a certain group of players.
Since the 2015 World Cup, very little change has been made to the batting lineup. Even if youngsters are given a go, it’s for a paltry three or four matches.
If you see potential in someone, it’s important to back that up with enough opportunities. There seems to be this culture that has a certain degree of resistance to change, which is something that shows up particularly in India, irrespective of who is involved in the selection process.
Without dwelling too much into the past, let’s have a look at what this current Indian team has to offer. The very balance of this side has gone awry. When you’re playing just five bowlers, including Hardik Pandya, there’s bound to be trouble, particularly on flat wickets.
Pandya’s performance in itself is very questionable. In 2018, the all-rounder has scored 68 runs in 9 matches, at an average of 13.60. With the ball, he’s averaged 74.40 with a strike rate of 79.80.
I’d rather have a specialist bowler or batsman in at 7 or 8 if my all-rounder is giving me 20-odd runs and 6 to 7 expensive overs.
The obsession with the next Kapil Dev has probably triggered such persistence with Pandya. In fact, it is because of his non-performance that Suresh Raina has been given a second life as an international cricketer.
Despite there being batsmen who have outscored Raina in the domestic tournaments, the southpaw has been given an extended run due to his ability to chip in with a few overs, in case the fifth bowler has an off day (the fifth bowler being Pandya). The team management doesn’t trust Hardik Pandya the bowler, hence the need for a backup option, even if it’s going to be a part timer.
Clearly though, Raina had lost his bowling abilities long before this series even began. It doesn’t take much of an effort to know that he hardly bowled in the IPL or the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where even his batting alone couldn’t merit selection.
The first name that springs to mind when considering bowling as a pre-requisite is Krunal Pandya. If Raina can be selected solely based on the IPL and not other domestic tournaments, then why turn a blind eye towards Krunal?
The elder Pandya has been the one in times of crisis for the Mumbai Indians, and has shown time and again that he’s ready for a promotion to the next stage. He’s a terrific fielder as well, so it’s not like Raina is providing you with something that Krunal isn’t. And if the issue with Krunal is experience, I’d ideally want someone like a Kedar Jadhav thrown back into the mix of things.
Make no mistake, Raina’s contributions to Indian cricket have been immense. I will always have that extra bit of respect for him since he’s someone who has batted wherever the team has needed him. Currently though, it seems to me that his best days have gone by.
The injustice to Dinesh Karthik is also something that needs to be looked into. Here’s someone who is in the form of his life, yet he can’t be fit into such a vulnerable batting lineup. Before the third ODI, the last international game that Karthik played was against Bangladesh, where he provided arguably the best finish that Indian cricket has had in recent times.
I would like to see a lot more of Karthik in the Indian team. His finishing abilities are the need of the hour.
The bowling, too, hasn’t been at the levels that we usually associate the Indian team with. I wouldn’t look too much into that though, as Bhuvneshwar Kumar didn’t look like 100 percent fit throughout the course of the limited overs leg of this tour. The world’s number one ranked bowler, Jasprit Bumrah, wasn’t available either.
If these two are fit for the World Cup, there shouldn’t be much of an issue with the death overs. You’re almost guaranteed 10 overs of the highest quality at the back end of the innings.
Admittedly, the reserves didn’t look the part. But to be fair to them, these weren’t ideal conditions for the quicker bowlers, as was the case when Australia toured England.
The Indian spinners were quite impressive, with Kuldeep surprisingly outdoing Chahal. They could’ve been a bit more consistent with their lengths at certain crucial junctions of the second and third ODIs, but with the pacers leaking runs upfront, their job wasn't made any easier.
The pitches being flat and the bowlers struggling to contain runs suggest that doesn’t add up with the performances of the Indian batting. If the bowlers were finding it so difficult to perform in such conditions, why weren't the batsmen making hay?
Change is something that the selectors need to look into, if India are to be a force to reckon with at the 2019 World Cup. If that means taking a few harsh calls along the way, so be it.