World Cup 2019: 3 concerns for India ahead of their opening fixture against South Africa
Team India will kickstart their World Cup campaign against South Africa on June 5 in Southampton. It will already be about a week before the Men in Blue play their opening encounter which will allow the Virat Kohli-led side with enough time to assess the conditions and be game ready to take on the Proteas.
However, the team has already played two practice games in the lead-up to the tournament. If the first game against the Kiwis didn't produce the desired result, the Indian team did turn up better in their second warm-up clash against Bangladesh to secure a thumping win by 95 runs. While results don't hold much significance in such games, it is the individual performance and the confidence of being in rhythm that the teams look to achieve.
Even in India's case, there were a host of positives with KL Rahul probably solving the No.4 conundrum, MS Dhoni continuing his IPL form, Bumrah being in supreme bowling form and wrist spinners getting few wickets in the second game. But still, there were few areas of concerns which Kohli and the team management would love to plug-in before their opening clash against South Africa.
Here we look at 3 major areas of concerns for Team India:
#1 Openers failing to deliver
If India has been known as a powerhouse of batting in the past few years, it is courtesy of their dynamic opening pair of Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan who have been remarkably consistent in the white-ball format. Along with Virat Kohli, they form one of the deadliest top three in world cricket.
However, the recent form of India's openers has been worrisome. Both the openers struggled for form in India's last ODI series against Australia, barring a solitary game at Mohali. And even in the two warm-up matches, the opening duo has failed to show any signs of dominance over the opposition. They were sent back cheaply in both the games and their lack of runs is India's biggest concern before their opening fixture against South Africa.
While Rohit looked set against Bangladesh before falling to a poor shot, Dhawan has been consistently troubled by the early swing on offer for the bowlers. India would desperately hope for a change in fortunes for the two, given they are too good to be out of form for such a long time.