As it turns out, the Indian batters cannot handle finger spin, wrist spin, or swing bowling. Quite a sobering thought ahead of the ICC World Cup at home.
Chennai: India’s One-Day International (ODI) series loss to Australia was not that much of a surprise, given that the Indian batting through the series, be it the ODIs or the preceding Test matches, was never ever convincing enough. The Test series win had much to do with the Australians’ inability to perform at the initial stages and once they got the hang of it all, the Indian team was challenged all the way through. Come the ODIs, and three indifferent top-order batting displays, punctuated by just a few redeeming efforts, ensured that the limited-overs honours go to Australia, as Rohit Sharma’s men suffered the first such series loss in India after 26 consecutive victories.
As it turns out, the Indian batters cannot handle finger spin, wrist spin, or swing bowling. Quite a sobering thought ahead of the ICC World Cup at home.
The Test series saw all the Australian finger spinners – Nathan Lyon, Matthew Kuhnemann and Todd Murphy – coming good against the much-vaunted Indian batting at one time or the other.
Over to the ODI series, and it was initially left to the superb Mitchell Starc to set the cat among the pigeons.
The first match in Mumbai was won thanks to possibly the only redeeming aspect of the Indian batting in the series, the partnership between KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja, once the Wankhede pitch had settled down a bit.
Thereafter, it was all Starc in Visakhapatnam and with the Australian openers going all out, a very sobering 10-wicket loss followed.
The MA Chidambaram Stadium track at Chennai saw Adam Zampa and Ashton Agar impressing in the most decisive way.
The Chennai pitch was not the easiest to score runs on, and India’s plans did not really help them in any way.
For one, demoting Suryakumar Yadav to No. 7 is just not on. Irrespective of his two golden ducks in the first two ODIs, he is not a batter who should be coming so low down the order in any situation.
The philosophy seemed to be that he’d be kept away from Starc’s swing (the reason for the first two ducks) and then play a late T20-like inning to wrap up the runs.
Wrong plan. Chennai was never ever the pitch where one could go hammer and tongs and score at 10-11 runs an over. It was a grafting track, where all batters needed time. That Yadav got another golden duck was incidental. He should have batted up the order, ahead of Axar Patel.
The rest of the batting was underwhelming throughout. A total of 270 at Chennai was challenging but never insurmountable. A lot of batters got over the initial stages and scored 30s and beyond, only to give it away when it mattered the most. Sure, they were tested by the conditions and Australian skipper Steve Smith’s brilliant tactics, but it was essentially their inability to handle top-class spin that was again brutally exposed.
Not a happy picture ahead of the World, with no other home series left to iron out the glitches, So, India will have to go in with the problems that exist and then hope that things fall into place. Hardly the best tactic, but there seem to no other plans afoot as of now.
