India vs West Indies: The ODIs highlight India have a major batting problem – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

You want to win Test matches? Take 20 wickets, consistently, every innings irrespective of whatever conditions you are playing in. How do you do that? Build a bowling attack that covers all bases – spin, pace, both home and away.

You want to win ICC tournaments in white-ball cricket? Score runs, lots of them. How do you do that? Build a fierce batting line-up that will outscore your opponents nine out of ten times, irrespective of conditions. In white-ball cricket, it isn’t as much about taking wickets as it is about restricting the opposition batting line-up, and therein lays the key.

India swamped West Indies across three ODIs, and after a stunning loss in South Africa, this series followed a proper winning script under full-time captain Rohit Sharma. Beating this opposition should never have been a bother, but this 3-0 win wasn’t as smooth sailing as the Men in Blue would have anticipated.

India’s top-order struggles

Between Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, the leftie Dhawan has the highest individual ODI score in 2022 (79 vs South Africa). AP

Here’s a stunning statistic for you. Since 1 January, 2020, India have played 21 ODIs and registered only four 100-plus individual scores in this interim. Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul (twice) and Shreyas Iyer are the only batsmen to score centuries in the last 25 months. There are four other 90-plus scores in this timeframe – two each from Shikhar Dhawan and Hardik Pandya.

Break this down further: India played nine ODIs in 2020 and another six in 2021. Three of those four hundreds came in 2020, and only one in six matches in 2021. In six ODIs in 2022 so far, no Indian batsman has scored a hundred yet. It gets worse. In 2022, India’s highest individual score is Rishabh Pant’s 85 against South Africa.

This century-drought is unprecedented by Indian standards. Usually, the top-order is scoring runs by the ticker and the middle order hardly gets a chance to bat. However this run-scoring machine has come undone off late. This is partly to do with a lack of game time – ODIs are few and far between, and batsmen are losing rhythm. Even so, the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli haven’t really dominated bowling attacks like they used to do.

Between the three of them, 79 (Dhawan vs SA) is the highest individual score in 2022. Across 2021, Dhawan top-scored with 98 against Sri Lanka. Kohli and Rohit didn’t play in Lanka, and earlier against England, their highest score was 66 and 37 respectively.

Virat Kohli’s issues

Virat Kohli has not struck a century, in any format, since November 2019. AP

While Dhawan has shown some sort of consistency and Rohit has been missing a few games because of fitness issues, it is Kohli’s form that is most worrisome. No hundreds since November 2019, off field issues including run-ins with the BCCI and a poor run of form plagued by technical issues mean Kohli’s loss of form is unprecedented. He is going through the leanest patch in his illustrious career, and that is now an understatement. Why? Because this isn’t even a patch anymore, going on for two-plus years now.

Every time Kohli comes to the crease, he seems distant. Almost like he doesn’t want to be there, not completely and his mind is elsewhere. Off-field antics have clearly taken their toll on a player once possessed with abounding energy. That facet of his game seems to have dried up, and he needs to rediscover not only his form but also his self again.

Maybe he needs a break from cricket. Just take some time off, get his head straight and get back into the game. Indian cricket – especially with regards to the 2023 ODI World Cup – will be lost without Kohli.

Is the middle-order sorted yet?

Lack of runs from the top-order then has a cascading effect on the middle, and it is only too well known. The fact that Rahul and Iyer have scored runs, and Pant has shown sparks of brilliance, all whilst batting in the middle, shows there is some method to this madness. And yet questions still pertain to what exactly is the shape India is looking to give its middle order.

When India lost Rohit and Kohli quickly in the third ODI, Iyer walked out to bat because left-handed Dhawan was still at the crease. If Rohit were still batting, Pant would have come out, much like it was in South Africa. This left-right-left-right is fast becoming an irritant. There is no set plan, no set role for the likes of Iyer and Pant, and they are getting shunted up-down at the whims of the think tank.

There can be an argument that floating batsmen in the middle order can perform a variety of roles. But India’s ODI success in the past two decades were built when captains like Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and MS Dhoni had defined roles for particular batsmen in the middle order. They didn’t have floaters, like in the 2019 ODI World Cup. When the top-order failed, what happened in Manchester? Did the floaters save you?

Further, are there too many cooks making the same broth? At this point in time, India have Rahul, Iyer, Pant and Suryakumar Yadav vying for three spots in the middle. That is not even accounting any bowling all-rounders like Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda or even Hardik Pandya (if he starts bowling again). Yet another series has gone past without India identifying its middle order, and the clock is ticking.

Bowling saves the day

India’s Prasidh Krishna, second left, celebrates with teammates the dismissal of West Indies’ Jason Holder during the third one day international cricket match between India and West Indies in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. AP

Let it be said here that the West Indies bowling attack dazzled in this series. Despite the 3-0 margin, they didn’t let India score comfortably whether chasing 170-odd, or the fact that India never once looked like reaching 300 whilst batting first. The differentiation between South Africa and West Indies herein was batting strength, and if West Indies had a better batting line-up at this disposal, this series could have been far closer.

It doesn’t however take anything away from the Indian bowling attack. When you don’t have 300 behind you, the pressure to take wickets only increases that much. Unlike in South Africa, the Indian bowlers had a strategically sound captain in Rohit behind them, and he made proper bowling changes to spur the likes of Prasidh Krishna and Washington Sundar.

Krishna is a proper find on account of the bounce he can garner, but it will be interesting if he remains in contention when Jasprit Bumrah returns. With Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar vying for the all-round pacer spot, ‘who is Bumrah’s new-ball partner’ will be a vital question going ahead. At the moment, Mohd. Siraj has that spot covered but Krishna can break ahead with consistent displays as in this series.

In the spin department, Sundar and Yuzvendra Chahal are forging a new partnership. Ravindra Jadeja’s return will have a further impact on this equation, but for the moment, Sundar-Chahal need to be allowed time to prosper. Chahal also needs a strategically commanding leader to channel his bowling and the coming months could see his resurgence in India’s white-ball plans. His best years came under Dhoni’s captaincy, and thus Rohit’s full-time captaincy is good news for him.

The vital question regarding a sixth bowling option is still pending though.

Overall, this ODI series will be remembered as one of few positives, particularly in the bowling department. But it has also given a lot of pertinent pointers as to what India needs to do in their preparations for the 2023 ODI World Cup.

Quite a lot, is the current summation!

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