World T20: India’s golden chance to iron out a few creases
India have very little at stake. They have already qualified for the World T20 semi-finals with one match to spare and from arriving in Mirpur on a long streak of losses, they have emerged as title favourites.
India have very little at stake. They have already qualified for the World T20 semi-finals with one match to spare and from arriving in Mirpur on a long streak of losses, they have emerged as title favourites.
Having lost both their matches, Australia have everything to play for.
And even if they win their remaining two matches they will have to hope neither Pakistan nor West Indies finish with more than two wins.
Pakistan take on Bangladesh in the first match in Mirpur on Sunday and India play Australia next. Going by the trend India showed in the three matches there are a few areas where skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni would want to iron out the creases. India have won the toss on all three occasions and their bowlers have not been put under pressure to defend a target.
No chance to bat
Other than the openers, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina, the rest of the team has hardly got a chance to bat.
Yuvraj Singh struggled in the two matches he did and on Friday Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who was not part of the Asia Cup squad here, promoted himself to get used to the conditions. Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin are yet to get a knock.
“If our middle-order has not been tested then it’s beyond our control... All we can do that for them is that give them the priority in the next match, send them up the order. We will see how it goes,” said Dhoni.
But Ashwin, who attended the pre-match media conference, said bowling second was not an option if they had a chance. “I wouldn’t want to swim against a tsunami. I wouldn’t want to challenge conditions. If we win the toss, we’ll again bowl first if that is what is required (to win). You’ll be fighting against a wall if you’re fighting against conditions,” said the off-spinner referring to the dew which makes it very difficult for bowlers, especially in the second session.
Dhoni, however, did mention at least twice that they had lost just one match in the previous edition of the World T20 and were out of the tournament.
Tough conditions
By that logic it would be prudent to test his bowlers in difficult conditions.
But it looks unlikely. This after the skipper himself accepted that he was yet to figure the death bowling combination.
“Frankly, no,” he said, about death bowling. “We will see the kind of help that the bowlers are getting and depending on where the wicket is placed (it can make the boundary on one side very short). Bhuvi has done quite well for us. Shami is struggling a bit…,” said Dhoni, who used Shami, Ashwin and Amit Mishra in the last over in the three matches.
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