Kohli is not Superman

Indian fans always want a Hero, more so a Superhero whom they can make their God. Earlier it was Sachin and now its Kohli. But what everyone forgets is that even The Great Sachin failed to win the World Cup in 1996 and 2003.

Its a team game helped by individual brilliance. You will hardly see a world cup winning team with a poor middle order and without 2 all-rounders. More often than not you need your middle order and your all-rounders to bail you out in a knockout match like a semi-final or a final.

The Australian team of 2015 world cup had – Maxwell, Watson, Faulkner (Allrounders), Clarke at 4. In the Quarter Final – Watson and Maxwell won them the match. Watson came in at 59-3 when Wahab Riaz was delivering a fascinating spell of fast bowling and finished the game. It was in this match only that Maxwell had taken 2 wickets of Mishbah and Umar Akmal in the middle overs to ensure that Aussies didn’t have to chase many.

The Indian team of 2011 world cup had – Yuvraj, Dhoni, and Raina in their middle order and Sehwag was there to roll his arm over on a turning pitch. What Yuvraj did in the world cup is known to all, be it with the bat again Australia in Quater Finals, or with the ball in the middle overs in the finals and many many more times. India’s middle order was as strong as their top order with Raina scoring those important fast runs against Pakistan and Dhoni’s masterstroke in finals.

The Australian team of 2007 world cup had – Hussey, Watson, Symonds as their middle order who not only bailed Australia out with bat and ball but also gave them those extra 15-20 runs in every match with their fielding.

At present India’s top 3 batsmen are best in the world by a long margin, fast bowling also looks good and spinners are capable of taking those crucial wickets in the middle but then that’s it. Middle order story is horrible and has been a point of discussion since eternity. Hardik Pandya and Kedar Jadhav are our two all-rounders. Pandya’s batting against fast bowlers is worse than Alan Donald’s running in 1999 semi-final. And Pandya has to face fast bowlers more often than not while batting at number 7. Jadhav is a utility player with his underarm bowling but his fielding and running between the wickets is awful and he bats just above Dhoni who is the fastest runner between the wickets.

Raydu’s performance in the Windies series does end the discussion for the number 4 slot but he is yet to prove that he can be match winner at that position and can finish the games when the top 3 fails which is bound to happen once in a while against a good bowling opponent as we saw in the 1-2 defeat against England.

With only 13 matches to play before the 1st match of the world cup, India needs to solve the issue of their middle order, all-rounders and their ground fielding otherwise be ready for a repeat of 1996 and 2003. Kohli will do what Sachin did but remember he is not Superman.

TARGET 2019: Only 17 Months Left

I have always heard every expert saying that the preparation of the next world cup starts at the end of the previous world cup. Isn’t 4 years a long time? Well, now with only 17 months to go for the cup, it is a good time for all the teams to start building their core 15 and their winning 11.

In international cricket, in the last decade, all the teams have struggled while traveling and the proof of the same is that the two world cups of the last decade are won by the host nation itself. And the interesting thing to note is that even the runners-up has also been taken by the host nation. Indian team has always struggled on their tours to England, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with one or two exceptional cases. The team has started the year with the tour to South Africa, next they would be traveling to England starting July,19 for almost a three-month trip. The next trip would be Down Under in Nov-Dec’19 and then just at the start of the next year the team would travel to New Zealand which is going to be highly competitive series with both teams filled with skilled players. In between these important tours, they will be playing a few of the mediocre series (I dare say any team mediocre in international cricket) like the West Indies tour of India, India tour of Ireland and the Asia Cup in the 50 over format. So clearly the idea of the board is to allow its player as much exposure to the foreign soil as possible.

With the 2019 World cup only 17 months away (again I dare say ONLY), every ODI now is analyzed keeping the world cup preparation in mind. Strange but True. Through my blog, let’s analyze the team’s preparation for world cup from a fans perspective. There is little doubt that the way Indian team’s itinerary is designed, it is for sure that the team wants to test themselves in all of the tough foreign conditions before they kick start their world cup campaign against the arch-rival Pakistan on 2nd June’19.

To end with, I remember a dialogue from the movie M.S Dhoni: The Untold Story –

Selectors: MS, world cup me abhi 3 saal baaki hai.

MSD: Sir, world cup me Abhi SIRF 3 saal baaki hai.

The next article on India’s successfull tour of South Africa.

A “Perfect Whitewash”

The result of the recently concluded India tour of Sri Lanka was on expected lines with India clinching the test series, the one-day series as well as the lone T20 game. But if any one says you that he predicted a 9-0 result, I am sure he is lying. Forget about the 9-0 result, the fact that all the matches were comfortable wins for India sets a huge difference between the two sides. On one hand, the series establishes India as the giant in this part of the world and on the other shows the building phase of Sri Lanka is surely not going anywhere.

If it was Dhawan and Pujara who took the opportunity with both hands in the test series, then it was Kohli’s and Sharma’s who scored the bulk of the runs in the one-day series. Both Dhawan and pujara scored 300 plus runs in the 4 innings that they batted in the test series while Kohli and Sharma did the same in 5 innings in one day international. On the bowling front the tried and tested pair of Ashwin and Jadeja did most of the damage in test matches and then Bumrah in one-day series proved yet again that he is the talent that India should take care of if they want to win the 2019 world cup. Ashwin and Jadeja took 17 and 13 scalps in 6 and 4 innings receptively in the test series while Bumrah with 15 scalps in 5 matches was the highest wicket taker by a distance in the one-day internationals.

There were 2 most important outcomes of the 3-0 whitewash for India – the 1st one without any doubt was Dhawan’s reassurance at the top. He carried his one day form to the test series as well and once again pushed his contention for the openers slot in the test matches as well. With Vijay coming in for the next series, India now will have 3 inform openers. The 2nd one which everyone was eager about was the fast bowling all-rounder in Hardik Pandya that India was looking for in test matches. His performance with both bat and ball did stand out. He provided his caption with crucial breakthroughs and scored some handy runs with the lower order. The team has invested heavily in him and now it looks like the investment is paying dividends. If a team wants to do well outside the sub continent, they need a Strokes or a Morris in their lineup and for India to proof their metal outside Asia, they will need Pandya to perform. till now he has done his reputation no harm and we all hope that he can build on his performance in the future.

Coming to the one-day series everyone knew India is going to win but there were 2 major points of discussions before the start of the series. Everyone was eager to see how KL Rahul performs in the middle order and perhaps for the first time in the last decade Caption Cool had to prove that he is an automatic selection. On any day he will be an automatic selection in any ODI team but such are the times that even the greatest finisher has to prove himself. So for the first time, India experimented with KL Rahul at No. 4 slot. Without any doubt, Rahul is a talented batsman full of stroke play but with 28 runs from 4 innings, he couldn’t adjust to the change in his batting position. And with Manish Pandey scoring a fifty in his comeback game, the Rahul experiment at No. 4 is certainly not a success. Once a finisher always a finisher, yes, I am talking about MS DHONI. With 162 runs in 4 innings and 4 not outs, he once again proved that no one can manage the pressure of finishing a game better than him at the moment. Srilankans had no answer to his defense in the 2nd ODI and to his late hitting in the 3rd ODI. Everyone India is hoping that he can once again Finish off in Style at Lords on 15th July 2019.

The next test for the men in blue will be against the Kangaroos, who must be coming with a lot of confidence after their test win against Bangladesh. Lets hope we get to see an aggressive series and tough competition from 17th September.