AHMEDABAD: In the lead up to the T20 World Cup — and during the entirety of the group phase — the Indian broadcaster kept running an ad centering around the team's chances of making 300 on a particular day. They could have just spoken to Suryakumar Yadav who would have politely asked them to remove the ad.
"We do have expectations of making 220-240-250 but the wickets are a little different here (during the World Cup)," the Indian captain said during the pre-match press conference ahead of the game against South Africa. "The four wickets we have played on so far were a little different and challenging. Off-spinners were not bowling earlier but are now."
The Indian captain has a way in press conferences. His smile, always at the ready, seldom leaves him even when answering tricky questions. One-liners are summoned every now and then. And wit is often deployed to cut the tension of a question. To one Abhishek Sharma question, Yadav said: "I worry for the people who are worried about Abhishek's form."
To a question on teams deploying off-spinners to tackle India's left-handed heavy batting unit, he said: "I think everyone is well equipped, we play franchise cricket, domestic cricket. In that, off-spinners also come to bat sometimes (smiles)." To a question on not fearing and not worrying, he corrected the scribe. "I only said not to worry..."
Sifting through the transcript of the 35-year-old's press conference, one can see a lot of (smiles). But reading between the lines, it's fairly clear that they will back Sharma — "he covered for the team last year, so we will cover for him now" — but they have also slightly tweaked their ethos with the bat.
When Sharma came into the World Cup, he had done so on a mountain of runs, most of it coming in boundaries. Having made his debut at the start of this cycle, he has made 78 per cent of his runs in fours or sixes. It's why he's so very important for India's batting 'identity', a word Yadav used. "When he scores a run, you have seen what happens," he said. "It happens, it's a team sport. The team has a requirement that the boy should play with his identity."
But, interestingly, the Mumbaikar spoke about the need to change that 'identity' because of the conditions, especially if they lose early wickets. Given the team management's dogma has revolved around keep going hard irrespective of the match situation — at least that was the plan during bilaterals — this is a significant shift. A kind of Bazball but with terms and conditions: sensible Bazball.
You can draw a straight line between this change in approach and Tilak Varma's somewhat muddled thinking in the middle. He's usually a very busy batter but throughout this tournament, there has been a feeling of watching somebody lost, not quite sure of how to play the situation.
That has been further exacerbated when facing spin. His career strike rate of 127 has dipped to 94. "The team management has told him that... if one wicket is down, he can go and have his own game in the powerplay. But as soon as two wickets are down, then he has to take a little bit of a backseat, get a partnership again, get to the 10th and then we have enough firepower and take on the bowling.
The skipper 'is sure' that Varma would not be happy with the 'he's batting right now'.
In an ideal world, they would like 'to explode from the start' but 'we don't have to be a team that we keep hitting and hitting'. We have to be a little smart also to bat well between overs 7 to 15. And then we have enough firepower that once the base is strong, we can score around 60-70 in the last five overs. So, till now those situations have come. Now whenever we get a good start, then we’ll bat with the same template. But, sometimes such tricky situations come in the T20 where you're two down, three down. So in the middle overs, you have to respect the game and keep your main game to the side. The team has to play according to the requirements."
In Ahmedabad, where seamers have been amongst the wickets in some of the previous matches, what will those requirements be?
A few minutes past 7.00 PM on Sunday will offer several clues.