Ahmedabad: Suryakumar Yadav has faced the most number of balls (119) for India in the league phase. He has batted with the best average (54.00) and scored at a decent strike rate (136.13). While achieving that, he delivered arguably the best under-pressure knock of the competition – 84* (49b) against the USA – and consistently laid the base for the finishers to fire.
But just take a second look at those numbers and the style: isn’t that the role Virat Kohli reveled in?
Surya has been playing the Kohli character to perfection – the anchor role India wanted to dispense with, but easier said than done in tournament sport being played on varied pitches and against less studied opponents every match.
Take away Surya steering the ship in the middle overs and India might have run the risk of their plethora of left-handers being exposed in the middle overs. That’s also perhaps the reason why Surya has stuck to No 4, even as the team stacked three left-handers in the top order to tackle the Powerplay.
When India made the strategic pivot to drop Shubman Gill, they didn’t see Sanju Samson losing complete touch and his place. Ishan Kishan’s stupendous form saw him joining forces with Abhishek Sharma with Tilak Varma walking in at No.3 – three left-handers at the top, a first for India in T20 World Cup history.
“It has,” Ryan ten Doeschate, India assistant coach replied when asked if it’s become easier for opposition to plan against India. “We don’t have many (right-hand) options. We’ve got Sanju sitting on the side and we feel on balance, particularly with the games coming up, if we look at what finger spin we are going to come up against – New Zealand, they’ve got a few guys who involve finger spin and so do the West Indies and so does South Africa if you include Markram.”
“But on balance, we still feel that these are our best batters and we are going to make do with the abundance of left-handers,” he added.
The onus is on India’s new-look top order to falsify the weight of data wisdom. Understandably, opposing gameplans have focused on pinning Indian left-handers down with finger spin, especially off-spin. While Ishan Kishan has counterpunched, Abhishek Sharma has spent all of 8 balls at the crease. Tilak Varma has found the going tough.
Again, like Varma, Surya has taken his time before changing gears. But the Indian captain managed to accelerate against the USA and threatened to break free in at least two of the other three matches. Varma has lacked fluency which could stem from the limits of his game in hitting out against spin.
Other than the match against USA, where he forged a useful partnership with Surya, Varma’s scoring rate against off-spin (32 off 36 balls) and left-arm spin (12 off 10 balls) has been alarmingly slow. While Varma did speak of strategically playing second fiddle to Kishan in the Pakistan match, he will need to do more to correct his adverse match-up numbers facing finger spin.
“With the amount of finger spin we’re going to get in the next three games, it’s going to be important that we dominate that phase of the game,” Ten Doeschate said, without referring to any particular player.
While India is ranked fourth in terms of scoring rates in the tournament, that’s mostly thanks to their batting numbers against pace where they are the best. Facing spin, they are way behind, ranked 15th in the 20-team competition. Not just their middle overs run rate (6.92) facing spin is slow, spinners have held them back in the powerplay (7.33) too. The only caveat being these are small sample sizes and top teams tend to raise their tempo as the level of competition rises.
India could look to break the left-hand monotony by promoting Surya to No. 3 at some stage during the Super 8 stage. For that Abhishek needs to spend more time at the wicket and forge an opening stand with Kishan. That would bring Surya late in the Powerplay or after, and still allow him to control the middle phase.
“It’s things you dream of when you go to bed at night, those two (Abhishek and Kishan) batting for six overs. But again, part of the strategy when you’re playing at this high level, where you really want to attack everything, you have to accept that you’re going to lose wickets as well,” Ten Doeschate said.
If India is unbeaten in the tournament, that’s thanks to their death overs ball striking which has complimented their ace bowling attack. Surya took the onus against the USA. Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube bossed the slog overs acceleration in the other matches.
India are yet to play their perfect game. In the chaotic world of T20, more than one thing needs to align for a flawless show.
