5 Things India need to change about their ODI strategy
Strategies. They are funny. When they work, the captain and coach look like geniuses. When they don’t, the same set of people look like clowns. Darren ‘Boof’ Lehmann would have been mocked for his beer drinking, laidback, straight-talk, non-managerial attitude had he not turned Australia around so drastically.England almost opened a new page or rather an entirely new book defeating World Cup finalists New Zealand, at their own brand of cricket – fast, entertaining, fearless and aggressive.India is No.2 in the ranking system and so there is no need really to press the panic button with one series loss to a really sound Bangladesh team playing at home. India’s away win in England and their performance in the World Cup show that the team has an all-condition attack.Yet, there are some strategies that could be tinkered with, some new attitudes adopted to keep up in the fast changing world of cricket. With ICC adopting a new set of rules that will help bowlers more than the batsmen, India might stand to benefit, given its batsmen are a lot more world-class than its bowlers.
#1 Five Bowlers
Virat Kohli has insisted he will play with five bowlers in Test matches. There is no reason why India shouldn’t adopt the same in ODI cricket. Ravindra Jadeja at No.7 just doesn’t cut it anymore and his exclusion from the squad to tour Zimbabwe is an indicator of things to come.
Ravichandran Ashwin is an excellent bet for No.7 any day, which allows India to either field Harbhajan Singh, Karn Sharma or Axar Patel as a second spinner. Given how at least one of the Indian pacers playing the game almost always misfires, it is not such a bad idea to have three of them playing.
Five bowlers suggests an attacking mindset and almost always gives the team an extra chance to get wickets.