A T20 World Cup semi-final billed as a riveting and pulsating clash between two giants became an abject one-sided affair as England not only handed out lessons on T20 cricket, but in the process also knocked 'favourites' India out of the tournament.
It didn’t take long for the evening to turn from hopeful to nightmarish and even though the Adelaide sunset made for picture-perfect television, India’s cricket did not.
KL Rahul had arrived for the clash on the back of successive half-centuries, and yet questions surrounding his temperament in big games were as loud as ever. Those concerns were aided further as the right-hander survived four balls before putting bat to Chris Woakes’ short ball and guiding it to Jos Buttler standing behind on the fifth.
Far from the elegant and rebellious maverick that made him a star in the first place, Rahul is a changed player these days, much to the detriment of his sides. Conservative in both body language and attitude, Rahul’s willow has gone from sharp roars and flashes of genius to demure whimpers.
Since 2018, his strike rate in international cricket has been constantly tumbling from 140+ to 130.76 last year and to the 126.53 that it stands as of today in 2022.
Orange Cap wins may have masked his poor approach in the IPL since 2019 as well but as Punjab Kings found out over the last two years of his captaincy, it doesn’t translate into winning matches, and as Lucknow Super Giants so disastrously during the 2022 qualifier against Royal Challengers Bangalore, it certainly doesn’t win tournaments.
Batting at the other end, however, was the more experienced Rohit Sharma, dismayed by both form and consistency (or lack thereof). During the Super 12 matches, he scored just 89 runs in five matches at an average of 17.8 and striking at just 109.9. They say that when you’re not in form, suddenly nothing comes off and it couldn’t be more true of his display in the semi-final.
Swinging and missing and grunting and swaying from side to side, Rohit was struggling to get bat to ball, or at least make proper contact. Finding sweet spots in the field or even middling the ball might as well have been an exercise in futility for the Indian captain who was made to work very hard for his runs.
Twice, Rohit checked the toe end of his bat, wondering if it the entirety of it had betrayed him and magically shortened to a Mongoose instead. Even with the couple of strokes that he did fetch boundaries, it only seemed he was inches away from a fielder’s grasp inside the circle.
By the time he did get put out of his misery after making 27 off 28, India were struggling at 56/2 inside nine overs, their run-rate slacking around six runs an over persistently.
Too much damage had been done within that period and the Men in Blue required yet another exceptional and outrageous effort from their stars Suryakumar Yadav and Virat Kohli.
But, of course, the law of averages caught up to India’s highest scorers in the World Cup in the crunch semi-final. Surya lives and dies by the sword, and this time, he had to pay the price and found a fielder in the deep while trying to slog Adil Rashid. Kohli, who backs himself by anchoring the middle overs in order to explode at the death, had to return back to the pavilion just when he was about the switch to the highest gear.
There was space for one final fairytale, however, as Hardik Pandya finally delivered with the bat for the first time in the tournament. He cut loose in the final three overs and smacked 50 runs in the final 18 balls he faced to take India to a respectable total of 168.
If India’s powerplay score of 38/1 looked torrid in real time, the dichotomy was further laid bare when England’s openers in Alex Hales and Jos Buttler came out to bat. Entering the first over, fans would’ve expected Bhuvneshwar Kumar to have the upper hand over the dangerous Buttler. The senior Indian bowler had not only troubled openers with his swing bowling during the World Cup, but had also previously dismissed the English captain on five occasions in just 32 deliveries in T20Is.
Nobody would’ve blamed Buttler for opting to rotate the strike or see out the first over in order to ascertain the degree to which the ball was swinging and moving. However, he smacked persistence into the run-chase with a boundary off the first legitimate ball he faced and took Bhuvi for 13 runs in the very first over without even having to take too many risks. Talk about intent.
A further 12 came off Bhuvi’s second while Arshdeep Singh, Axar Patel, and Mohammed Shami were all greeted with boundaries and sixes by the two openers. Within the blink of an eye, England were up to 63/0 inside the powerplay - their run rate dashing at 10.50 and the asking rate only a gentle 7.5 an over.
Having aced the batting powerplay with flying colours, England had not only nailed the first half of the run-chase but had also cornered India into a point of no return. There would be no redemption from hereon as the remainder of the contest essentially became a walk in the park for both Hales and Buttler whose combined 170 is now the highest partnership in T20 World Cup history.
It was a lesson in batting approach and temperament in 20-over cricket. Of course, India are no strangers to this but what is especially baffling this time around is how it ended up happening in the first place.
Ever since the humiliating first-round exit at the T20 World Cup last year, the new team management, led by the duo of Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma, had put a lot of emphasis on finding the right ‘intent’ and looking for a more aggressive approach to batting in this format. Intent, in fact had become a buzzword for India during pressers.
For the major part of last year, they stayed true to that idea and results and numbers in bilateral cricket also accounted for the same.
Between the end of last year’s World Cup and the start of the current one, India not only had the best overall batting strike rate (146.80) in the world, but also the best powerplay batting strike rate of 134.94 among the full member nations. Indian fans and experts embraced the long overdue change.
Whether that idea was eventually thrown out of the window during the 2022 World Cup to make up for the openers’ lack of form or the team reverted back to old habits, India failed to replicate the same during the course of the main tournament.
Only Zimbabwe and the Netherlands had a worse powerplay strike rate than India during the Super 12 stage and the Men in Blue were also ranked second-worst on impact ranking during batting powerplays just ahead of Zimbabwe.
Neither Rohit nor Rahul managed to deliver constantly and besides the latter’s two half-centuries against Bangaldesh and Zimbabwe, they both cut extremely frustrated figures who failed to make a dent over the course of the game. A side failing to score 40+ consistently in powerplays shouldn’t even be in contention for the World Cup trophy. Cricket, being the great equaliser it is, reminded India of the same today.
It will be a harrowing realisation for the team management as the team now disperses, some for the New Zealand tour and some back home, that the only difference in their batting between the World Cup campaign last year and this year was Kohli playing the innings of his life against Pakistan and Surya hitting a freak purple patch.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, to say that India need changes in what they do with the bat in T20s will be an understatement. They need a major revolution.
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