Though the World Cup is a year away, has India’s overpoweringly dominant performance against the South Africans made them a strong contender for the title?It is not often that an Indian one-day team swamps its opponents in such a domineering fashion in their own den, that too one like South Africa. The margins have been huge, to the delight of the Indians and embarrassment of South Africans.The Indian team is blessed to have someone of Virat Kohli’s talent, focus, fitness, determination, and the ability to lead from the front. His run of scores over a period of time has been simply amazing, and nothing seems to perturb him.
No pressure, no amount of overload on his body and mind, and not even the captaincy of a high-profile team like India has had any negative effect on his batting. How he has steeled himself from the distractions of the outside world may someday become the stuff of folklore. To put it simply: is he for real, possessed as he seems to be with robotic qualities in human form?Since the real essence of a performance is the impact it has on a match’s result, the motif of this side should be: since Kohli is in his groove, all is well with the Indian team.
What has turned India’s fortunes in the one-dayers after the Test series loss has without doubt been the daring, bold selection of two wrist-spinners in the team.There has been a clamour from many experts that India should be playing two spinners in one-dayers even outside of India, but not many have dared to do so.I think it is Ravi Shastri’s imprint that is obvious in pushing for Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal at the risk of even weakening the team’s batting.
This move has paid huge dividends as the South African batting failed to read — either from the wicket or the hand — which way the ball would turn and got trapped in a quagmire of uncertainty. As India move from here to their next stopover in England, it is to be seen whether these two bowlers will continue to have the same impact, or whether more exposure wear their mystery off.
There is little doubt about the strength of India’s pace attack, as Jasprit Bumrah has been outstanding. In English conditions, Bhuvneshwar Kumar will be more than a handful. So, do we conclude that India already have the World Cup in sights, or do we advise caution?
The latter, definitely. Because lingering doubts still remain, particularly with regards to the Indian middle-order. Imagine if Kohli had not fired so consistently in South Africa, what India’s fate could have been!
This Indian team is now a one-man army, with matching contributions coming only from the top. It almost appears as if India have no middle, with MS Dhoni no longer in the kind of irrepressible form we were used to seeing him in.
In South Africa, that did not matter since the Men in Blue’s bowlers did their job with surgical precision. But, to always expect that they will make up for a brittle backbone during the World Cup might be pushing their luck too far.The good thing is that the team is aware of this shortcoming, and Shastri has admitted that he does not think that this team is the strongest possible one for the World Cup.
They are on the lookout for a couple of batsmen, and hopefully the IPL might help them identify their missing links.Since the IPL has now become an important event in the nation’s calendar and many swear by the benefits that Indian cricket accrues from it, I will refrain from making this piece an inventory of the league.
My fear, especially in the year of the World Cup, stems from the damage its scheduling could cause to the fitness of players.The team is overworked, though Kohli’s superhuman fitness may be preventing us from realising that fact. India go to England immediately after the IPL, and the same will be the case next year.
India needs to guard itself against burning out what potentially could be a World Cup winning team.