COLOMBO: At India's practice session under lights on Saturday night, it was instructive that their batters spent significant time facing a local left-arm seamer, some spin from Varun Chakravarthy as well as Suryakumar Yadav's impromptu Usman Tariq impersonation.
In both nets, India's left-handed heavy batting unit took turns to play spin, do some range hitting against pacers but also try to flick the ball off the hips. Outside the nets, Tilak Verma had an extended session dedicated just for playing sweep shots (and, yes, both Abhishek Sharma and Washington Sundar were present).
While the Indian captain said the wicket looks very good, the strip in Sri Lanka has generally tended to favour artisans over artists. Hitting through the line is difficult and the bounce may not be true. Batters who do possess the power game can get some joy but they need to earn that right. That essentially means grinding before launching.
And throw in the possibility of a shower or two — there was some rain in the air just when India had started their training session in the evening — and this will be a challenge for most batters.
More so for a team who are yet to hit top gear. In the two games thus far, they have displayed vulnerabilities that not many thought existed. Against the US in the opener, they lost a clutch of wickets up front. When Namibia came calling, their spinners ran riot in the middle phase. While they have blamed the tracks so far for their below par batting performances, you cannot afford to be one dimensional in your set-up, especially if the conditions have changed.
India have seemingly come up with some plans of their own to counter Pakistan's spin-heavy bowling department, but Yadav also called on his batters to be brave. "I feel we had a little scratchy start, yes," the captain said. "You can't run away from the fact that it was not a proper T20 wicket. But... you can't actually brush everything under the carpet.
"There is no excuse. Because everyone has played a lot of cricket. So batters, I think, should be brave in taking their own calls. Have their own plans on batting on a difficult, not a difficult wicket but a tricky T20 wicket. But in the second game, we were really good (against Namibia in Delhi). We came back very strong. Had a good power play. But then still we had a little bit of a slump in between. But then we covered it well (in the end)".
In the bilateral tournaments at home over the last year, the team have played in a lot of true wickets where the ball had come on nicely and where hitting through the line was possible from ball one. In some of the games at the World Cup, though, that has not been possible. There has been some grip available for spinners and seamers have had some joy and dew has stayed away from some games. All of that has led to some frustration. "Two back-to-back pitches haven't been batting-friendly," Hardik Pandya said after his player of the match performance against Namibia. "Wicket was holding a bit today (Thursday). "You just adapt and let your skill set work. We would like a little more flatter wickets."
Ishan Kishan, India's principal powerplay basher up front, spoke on similar lines in the press conference a few minutes later. "I feel it was a bit different from what we expected," the keeper-batter said. "Looking at the death overs today (Thursday), we were not able to regularly hit sixes."
That's obviously a problem because India have transformed their T20 fortunes on the back of their boundary-hitting madness over the last few seasons. Sure, they have eight virtually unhittable overs in the form of Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy but what has set them apart in this format is that their batters have either consistently broke open the game in the powerplay while chasing or set imposing 200+ totals, thus putting scoreboard pressure on sides chasing. It's how they have built up a barely believable ratio of over six wins per every loss since 2024 in a format as fickle as this.
Among the over 100 countries to have played T20Is in this time period, India are also the only side to average over 150 runs per 100 balls. It's why their batters have understandably turned up their noses in conditions they haven't readily recognised. They have generally turned up and bossed the bowlers as they have decided to take the conditions out of the equation.
On Sunday, their batters face a true test. The unstoppable force meets an immovable object. The Premadasa square.
