In a see-sawing match, a floundering and error-prone India overcame a plucky Bangladesh to win the match and the series. For a while, when Indian were under the pump, it looked like Bangladesh would take the game away but one over turned the match on its head and India was a relieved team to walk away with the series in tow; just a few days earlier, India had lost its first ever T20 match to the eastern neighbours. Yes, the Indian team was shorn of some of its biggest stars for this series, but Bangladesh was missing some of its stars as well. While this defeat didn’t quite feel like the sucker punch that led India to prematurely exit the World Cup in 2007, it had been a long while coming.
About three years ago, Mushfiqur Rahim had almost dragged his team across the line in a pulsating encounter at the 2016 World T20; but somehow, that Bangladesh team had found a way to lose the match at the death, losing three wickets in the last three balls. Such a hiccup wouldn’t happen this time around—Bangladesh didn’t lose the opportunity to beat its more fancied opponent. But these results were more a reflection of how much India has been behind the curve in the sport’s shortest format for a while now.
India’s excellent test team and its depth has been a topic of discussion recently, and rightly so. Additionally its ODI team is possibly the best-ever in its cricketing history. But the story is quite different in the T20 format. India started the series in the fifth place—a fair reflection of where it stands in this format. It is hard to believe that a team which took to the format like a duck to the water in the inaugural World T20, and has, arguably, the world’s best T20 domestic league is an also-ran in this format.
Over the last few years, the Indian team management has been treating T20s as a proving ground for fresh talent seeking a place in the Indian team. Back in 2017, Ravi Shastri said:
“T20 cricket for us, we don’t care. You win or lose, it doesn’t matter, but give youngsters the opportunity so you come to know who is in the fray for 2019.”
Many, many matches later, India still doesn’t know the identity of the middle order or that of the keeper. What is worse, by conflating the two formats, it is doing a disservice to both. This has been happening with such regularity that it isn’t even funny anymore.
Though cricket fans may view T20 as a compressed version of the ODI, it is fundamentally a different sport. You may argue that it is still 11-on-11, played in the same stadium, with same rules and so on, but the grammar of the sport makes it very different from the two longer formats. The balls per dismissal hovers ~65 in tests and ~38 in ODIs. But in T20Is, this number dips drastically to ~17 but you still have ten wickets! Meaning, on average, a batsman in T20Is faces about three overs, and he has to maximize returns in this short stint at the wicket, which turns traditional cricket thinking on its head. So go-to phrases from the commentator/TV pundit manual such as “playing yourself in”, “set batsman” and “why didn’t he just take a single after scoring a big shot instead of going for another” don’t apply in this format, more so in the first innings when you are looking to maximize the score. Therefore, T20 batting is the antithesis of batting wisdom in the longer formats.
And this is where India has always missed a trick—by not focussing on strike rate or run rate. Primarily, what has been holding India back has been a conservative approach to batting—an extension of the affliction affecting the ODI team as well. Over the last five years, against top teams, India has been the best side while chasing, but has an average record while setting the target—suggesting that India struggles to read the conditions right and set an appropriate target more often than not.
At the top of the order are Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and Virat Kohli, the most-feared top order in ODI cricket today; but they don’t lead the pack in T20Is in terms of strike rate (only Rohit makes the top 10). One look at the IPL stats, it is the same story there as well. Virat Kohli has made an unearthly 60 runs per dismissal in T20Is over the last 5 years. But guess what? At his strike rate of 139, when <7 wickets is enough to last the entire 20 overs in the average T20I, two Evin Lewises will overcome his output on a consistent basis. To be fair, Rohit Sharma has upped his game over the last few years (like he did so in the second match), but there is perhaps only one spot (at most) for a “classical batsman” who can motor along as other players “explode” around this fulcrum. But what has affected the team over the last few years is that it is filled with several “me-too” batsmen who play with this attitude. Instead, Indian batsmen should learn to value their wickets far lesser in the T20 format and learn to “go for it” from ball 1.
The problem with the batting is only emblematic of the larger problem affecting the Indian team—it is too slow to adapt to the evolution of the format around the cricketing world and picking up best practices. It was too late to the wrist spin party; it took a really long time to give chances to spin-bowling all-rounders such as Krunal Pandya who have much better batting chops than Axar Patel (this is in spite of having seen good performances in the IPL); it isn’t thinking of experimenting by sending a pinch-hitter at the top of the order (in the mould of Sunil Narine or Moeen Ali) to maximize returns; heck, BCCI doesn’t even allow players to participate in overseas leagues even when there are no domestic or India commitments. No wonder India’s understanding of the game is quite limited.
With the 2020 World T20 looming large, and with the team falling short in previous editions, India should pull its socks up in the upcoming 20-odd matches in the format if it has to take a serious step towards correcting the anomaly.
paajivspunter 