CHENNAI: India's T20 juggernaut shows no signs of stopping at the moment. In the first match of the five match T20I series against the visiting Kiwis, the hosts displayed their ruthless streak both with bat and ball to romp home by 48 runs.
Going on a run in T20s can be very difficult because of the different factors at play. Luck, conditions and a few balls can all result in a different result. It's kind of why what Suryakumar Yadav & Co have managed to do over the two years or so is praise-worthy. Across 38 matches post winning the last T20 World Cup, they have now won 28 matches (five losses). What has worked for them is they have match-winners across all phases while batting and bowling.
An earlier iteration of the team's batting unit was perhaps focused on wicket conservation. Those shackles have well and truly loosened as this side have learned to ignore the number on the right side of the scoreboard. Keep marrying intent with execution and generally forget about the other stuff. But it's true their bowling that has given them a platform where they have genuine chances of becoming the first team to successfully defend the T20 World Cup. In Varun Chakravarthy and Jasprit Bumrah, they have two locks. Eight overs for not many, lots of dot balls, very few hit-me balls and wickets.
And Arshdeep Singh generally finds swing under lights. And he's generally very accurate with the new ball. Out of the 76 wickets the left-armer has picked in T20Is, 49 of those have come in the powerplay. His 50th powerplay wicket came in the first over of the New Zealand run chase. The Black Caps, fresh from a famous 2-1 ODI series win on these shores, had the knowledge of excess dew in the outfield but even then, a target of 239 proved to be too much.
The Indian bowling in this format, with less than a month to go for the bash, are set and forget operators. They all know what's expected of them as the role clarity is supreme. All the bowlers did what was expected of them to a T. Minimum fuss, maximum efficiency. The same can be said of the batting as well. Up front, Abhishek Sharma knows only one way. Go big or go home. But because he has total conviction in his methods and he's playing percentage cricket when the field is up, his conviction is backed up by some logic. It's the method behind his madness.
On Wednesday, after being asked to bat first, Sharma took off against their new ball bowlers and the boundaries and maximums kept flowing off his blade. He had muscled his way to 31 when the powerplay finished off just 15 balls. Off the next 19 balls, he scored 53 runs all bowlers travelled the distance and to various parts of the ground.
He can sometimes lose shape when trying to muscle the ball but other that, there aren't many weaknesses. Ish Sodhi went for sixes on the off and the on side. The returning Mitchell Santner, usually a scourge for many an Indian batting unit across formats, was off colour thanks to Sharma's ebullient strokeplay. Glenn Phillips, who turns the ball away from the left-hander, was despatched for a hat-trick of boundaries in front of square on the off side. They had three spinners and all three of them were taken apart by Sharma. A gauntlet had been laid down.
Once he departed, Rinku Singh assumed centerstage to lift the hosts to 238 on a placid track. Arshdeep got the early wicket and the game was over as a contest. This was a professional display from the world champions three weeks before it begins.
As far as the first of five dress rehearsals, this was pretty much on the money.
Brief scores: India 238/7 in in 20 ovs (Abhishek 84, Rinku 44 n.o; Duffy 2/27) bt NZ 190/7 in 20 ovs (Phillips 78, Dube 2/28)