India’s new head coach Rahul Dravid’s lavish praise for new T20 captain Rohit Sharma is a good start to the new season. For a team to thrive, the relationship between the coach and the captain is vital. Dravid and Rohit, with generous mutual back pats at the official press conference on Tuesday, have hit a good footing.
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The real test of their chemistry and strategy will undoubtedly be on the field of play and the results India will achieve will start with the three-match T20I series against New Zealand today. There are obviously advantages to playing at home, but there are also difficulties that cannot be eliminated.
Some of the best players in the country- Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami have been rested. Deservingly, but it does substantially less in the team. Picking a playing XI from the selected team, which has good balance and depth between batting and bowling, will be a problem for Dravid and Rohit.
In the shortest format, the home advantage is reduced to a great extent. For example, India defeated both New Zealand and Australia in T20Is in those countries on their previous tour. What matters more is quick adaptability, good form and strong ambition to turn tight situations to the advantage of a team. In all these aspects, India was found to be laggy in the T20 World Cup.
There was not a single player from India in the ICC World Cup squad, which has never happened before. This may be an aberration, but also highlights India’s recent slowdown in T20Is which would not have been lost on the head coach and captain.
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Given that the three matches will be played in just five days, the opening pace will be crucial for both sides, especially as India reach the final of the World Cup after an impressive campaign.
Kane Williamson’s absence will certainly be felt both as a batsman and as a captain. He is being rested for the two-Test series after the T20. But Tim Southee, who takes over, is a player with similar experience to Williamson and also widely respected for his leadership skills. He also had a stellar year for his national team in Tests and T20Is and impressed in the few matches he played for KKR in the IPL.
New Zealand will miss Williamson, Kyle Jamieson and the injured Conway, but many in the team have invaluable playing experience. IPL – Southee, Trent Boult, Adam Milne, Jimmy Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Glenn Phillips – that is, they not only know the conditions of India, but also know the strengths and weaknesses of the Indian players.
The performances of the opening pair of Martin Guptill and Daryl Mitchell and the spin duo of Ish Sodhi and Mitch Santner will be crucial to New Zealand’s chances of winning. The team may be far from mega stars, but the Kiwis have been consistently punching above their weight in all formats for the past few years and it would be surprising if they don’t do the same this time around.
There are going to be many Tests for India in the series. To begin with, Dravid and Rohit will need to forge a game combination that is good enough to win the match. This has become difficult in the absence of the clutches of established players. True, resting these stars provides an opportunity to check out other players, but this exercise becomes pointless if it remains one-dimensional, and is not aimed at winning.
The team is dominated by openers (Rohit, KL Rahul, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Venkatesh Iyer, Ishan Kishan). All of them will not be slotted on their regular number, may not even make the cut. With Rohit, Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant, the top-order batting looks already full, so the scope for experimentation is limited.
Maybe, another batsman may get a spot at number one. 6. Venkatesh, who plays in the middle order for Madhya Pradesh and can bowl medium pace fast, might fit the bill. In Indian conditions, playing three spinners will be more tempting. There should be two of them who can bat as well, namely Axar Patel and R Ashwin. Whether or not a strong Yuzvendra Chahal gets a place in the playing XI on the return path, it is certain.
This leaves room for only two fast bowlers. Three relatives of newcomers, Siraj, Avesh Khan and Harshal Patel, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, a veteran campaigner, are in contention. For the first three mentioned, success in this series paves the way for being in the short list for the T20 World Cup next year. It is likely to be a do or die week for Bhuvneshwar in this format.
Which combination will take the field today at this point can only be guessed at. The thing is, it is not an easy task for Dravid and Rohit. Both have talked about preparing a new blueprint for T20 cricket, which means new thinking and approach. But templates work best when created by available resources/talent. Trying to do it another way could result in serious damage.
Both Dravid and Rohit have excellent credentials. Almost every player has been through his mentorship – formally in the Under-19 or India A teams, or informally when he has been the head of the NCA. Dravid will have a high understanding of all these players, enhanced by his meticulous methods of data collection and extrapolation.
Rohit is known to all the players be it India’s colleague, teammate or opponent in IPL. They are widely respected for their prowess as players and their leadership achievements, which are examples of Kohli standing up for him in IPL titles as well as the Asia Cup and a few other matches.
Prima facie it appears that the pair’s approach will be driven by more thought and process. This may mean some period of experimentation and trial-and-error, before they – and the team – hopefully get into a winning streak. The coach-captain combo promises a turnaround and there is a lot of hope in them, with the next T20 World Cup just a year away.
There is much ground to achieve now, and not much time to achieve it.
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