Aakash Chopra: Jury still out over Yuvraj and quicks

Aakash Chopra 10:28 15/02/2016
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  • India answered some concerns during the series win over Sri Lanka.

    Who would partner Rohit Sharma at the top of the order? Will Shikhar Dhawan manage to fulfill that role in Twenty20 cricket too? Some questions have been answered following the series win over Sri Lanka but several still remain as bigger prizes wait in the months ahead for India.

    While Dhawan’s one-day international numbers are enviable, his T20 statistics aren’t very impressive. And if there was one missing piece in India’s T20 jigsaw puzzle, that was his utility or the lack of it. That’s why the batsman’s upturn in fortunes is the biggest gain from the three-match series against Sri Lanka. The 30-year-old scored some crucial runs, including knocks of 51 and 46*, but more importantly, it’s the way he got them that will give India a lot of assurance. Before the short-form action against Australia last month, his T20 strike-rate was 96 in the power-play overs, which is unacceptable for an opener in this format.

    But by the time he had starred for India against Sri Lanka, it had shot up to 150. This is the strongest Indian batting line-up for a very long time and if everyone contributes to the cause then the ICC World T20 trophy is well within their grasp on home soil. The form of Rohit, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina allows everyone else to play fearlessly, given the strength and depth down the order. That’s where Dhawan’s low strike-rate was a potential problem but, fortunately for India, it isn’t anymore.

    While we know that Dhawan’s resurgence was the biggest gain, we must also look at what India tried to achieve in this series. The objective of this short T20 series before the Asia Cup was twofold:

    1. Define roles for all the players and to give clarity to where they are batting and bowling.
    2. To get players like Yuvraj Singh playing their way into form and give match-time to squad members like Hardik Pandya and Pawan Negi.

    For me, the second objective was the top priority because form is critical to success in 20-over cricket. It’s imperative to have everyone at the top of their game ahead of next month’s World Cup, given that there’s little time during the competition to find rhythm.

    Good form, of course, allows players to play fearlessly but only if you have runs or wickets under your belt. And the only way to ensure that people find that confidence is by tinkering with the batting order and shuffling the eleven players that take to the field. Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni did just that with the selection of Pandya in Ranchi and it paid dividends. The way the match panned out in Pune (Sri Lanka won by five wickets), it happened by default for Yuvraj.

    Now that the veteran all-rounder is back in the side, it’s important to find out if he is really back as the match-winner that we all know him to be. The jury is still out as to whether he is still India’s go-to man in a crisis and recent performances have not made the argument convincing in his favour. But the Asia Cup, to be played this month and in early March against Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka at home will provide one last opportunity for Dhoni to run the rule over his long-term team-mate.

    As far as the bowling department is concerned, it’ll continue to do the job if the pitches behave the way they did in this series. Indian bowling is ideally suited to a track that offers a bit of spin, for that not only gives greater opportunities for either Ravichandran Ashwin or Ravindra Jadeja to deliver match-winning spells but also provides plenty of options to skipper Dhoni behind the stumps. On such wickets, Yuvraj and Raina are also more than capable of pitching in with a few overs of spin each. However, India’s pace resources are thin and therefore it’s critical to keep Jasprit Bumrah in good touch and Ashish Nehra fit throughout the upcoming matches.

    Even though India comfortably won the series, it also provided great lessons to be learnt. The first match in Pune was an eye-opener of sorts, with the Indian batting order faltering on a pitch that offered seam and swing to the fast bowlers. The problem wasn’t so much about the technique to handle seam-swing but their ability to adapt to a new situation. A red flag should’ve gone up the moment India lost a couple of quick wickets but that didn’t happen. Indian batsmen continued to bat as if it was one of the flattest pitches, which it clearly wasn’t. 32-2 soon turned to 55-7, something that shouldn’t have happened. India will be wiser after that one-off debacle.

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