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Cricket PlayersIndia vs New Zealand, semi-final World Cup 2019: Virat Kohli aims to overcome the ‘pressure stat’ of chasing
India vs New Zealand, semi-final World Cup 2019: Of the 13 matches hosted by Old Trafford, Edgbaston and Lord’s—venues of the World Cup knockouts this time—11 have been won by teams batting first.
While this World Cup has done its bit in giving bowlers due recognition, it has also been heavily skewed in terms of predictability. Of the 41 completed round robin matches, 27 were won by teams batting first. The most significant reason behind this number is how pitches have slowed down over time, hindering stroke-play or even plain old slogging. After India slumped to their first World Cup loss in Birmingham, to England, both teams came out to say that the pitches had become difficult for batting. MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav, hence, weren’t entirely to blame for that defeat.
India vs New Zealand, semi-finals, ICC World Cup: Live score and updates
With the focus shifting to the knockouts, there is a fair bit of anticipation how the toss may play out more in favour of one team. Of the 13 matches hosted by Old Trafford, Edgbaston and Lord’s—venues of the World Cup knockouts this time—11 have been won by teams batting first. The two exceptions were courtesy Pakistan’s exceptional batting effort that saw them ace 237 on a tricky Birmingham pitch against New Zealand, days after Kane Williamson’s industrious century anchored a brilliant chase to virtually knock out South Africa from the World Cup.
READ: Kevin Pietersen gives his prediction for World Cup 2019 semi-finals
Interestingly, New Zealand have both won—remember Carlos Brathwaite?—and lost in a humdinger against Pakistan—after setting targets. Conditions however have often been tricky, influencing results to a large extent. So clearly, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson wasn’t speaking only on behalf of his bowlers while elaborating why dismissing batsmen was getting laborious at times. “I think we have seen conditions change from first innings to second on some occasions. That’s been quite considerable. So, how guys have had to operate in the start of their innings and then moving into the second half of the bowling innings have had to be quite different,” he said on Monday.
Despite the disparities, chasing seems to be New Zealand’s forte, with four out of their five wins coming while batting second. The win against South Africa was a match to remember but more draining for New Zealand was when it eked out a two-wicket victory against Bangladesh. Even if they bat second, all may not be lost for New Zealand then. Two days after pulling off a rather easy 264-run chase against Sri Lanka, India captain Virat Kohli too feels it’s more in the mind than about the pitch or the toss.
“It comes back to the same point, handling pressure. You make two bad decisions while you are chasing and the game goes away from you, too far to pull it back. So I assume that that is going to be the case because having been in so many chases, I understand that the pressure can be very high if you don’t go with the pace of the game, and then understanding the magnitude of the tournament like this you probably are going to end up making a couple of mistakes and the opposition is not going to let you off after that,” he said.
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“So, we are not worried about the toss. It is an uncontrollable. You can’t predict what is going to happen at the toss. We have to be prepared both ways and we are quite open to do that. And if it is a factor, it’s a factor, so we can’t say if we lose the toss, we have no hope because we should believe enough in ourselves as a side to overcome any kind of situation. So, I think all teams prepare in that manner. It’s a stat which I think is connected to pressure and not the pitch, to be very honest.”
Thankfully, the pitches for the knockouts are fresh meaning the imbalance between batting first and second could be minimum. That should not only ensure closer competition, but also a better display of skills.
