India’s ODI series with Bangladesh will test its World Cup preparedness

For some, the audition began last week, during the rain-hit three-match series in New Zealand. For others, it kicks off on Sunday (December 4), during the first of three One-Day Internationals in Bangladesh. Skipper Rohit Sharma insists it’s too early to start talking about auditions and start thinking about the next 50-over World Cup in India, which is 10 months away.

No matter what Rohit might say, it’s unlikely that any 50-over international between now and next October will be viewed through any other prism than a means towards the end, which is the World Cup. As it is, the clamour to come out triumphant in a home tournament is bound to build to a crescendo by the time the event comes calling. Allied to the fact that it would have been more than a decade at that point in time since India added any global silverware to their increasingly barren cabinet, it’s unlikely that the fans will be as unforgiving as they were last month, when India’s campaign at the T20 World Cup in Australia came to a shuddering halt in the semifinals against England.

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Why India needs spinners the most

Unlike in Australia where the fresh, early-season surfaces assisted the quicker bowlers generously, it’s the spinners who are expected to do the bulk of the damage in the subcontinent. October-November is right at the start of the Indian season too – unlike in many other parts of the world where cricket is a summer sport, in India it’s a winter exercise – and while there won’t be the natural wear and tear that the tweakers thrive on, the very nature of the pitches here are such that the middle overs will become a fertile wicket-taking option, depending on the quality of spin resources at a team’s disposal.

Against that backdrop, it’s something of a surprise that there is no wrist spinner in the Indian squad for Bangladesh. The spin component is made up of Washington Sundar, Axar Patel and Shahbaz Ahmed – Ravindra Jadeja is still unavailable due to injury – but whether this is an indication of what tack Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid want to take going forward is open to question. India carried Yuzvendra Chahal to the T20 World Cup but he was one of only two players, apart from Harshal Patel, not to get a game. The leggie did play in New Zealand when the opportunity presented itself sporadically, but his one-time spin twin, left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav, didn’t get any game time. Now, neither Chahal nor Kuldeep is in the touring party; if workload management is going to be used as the reason, it won’t cut any ice, given that they have had so little workload that there is literally nothing to manage.

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Careful line up of batters

It’s impossible that Rohit and Dravid won’t be feeling any pressure at all. The World Cup semifinal meltdown meant for the second time in two and a half months, India had failed to make the title round of a multi-team event. In the Asia Cup in the UAE in August-September, successive Super 4 losses to Pakistan and Sri Lanka derailed India’s designs. Australia can be put down to one bad night with the ball – to be fair, the bowlers did remarkably well in all other games – but how long this ‘one bad game’ reasoning will remain palatable is open to debate, considering that India have lost in the semifinals of the each of the last four World Cups where they have advanced to the knockout stages.

As much as the spin bowling – and bowling in general, which wears a reasonably inexperienced look now that Mohammed Shami too has been ruled out – there will be plenty of focus on how India manage their batting options. Shikhar Dhawan’s presence would indicate he will likely team up with Rohit at the top of the batting tree, in which case vice-captain KL Rahul ought to bat in the middle order. Dhawan is among the fittest in the country, never mind the fittest 37-year-old, and if he is a shoo-in for the World Cup – all other things being equal – it’s imperative that he be persisted with. If not, then at some stage going forward, Shubman Gill will need the backing, the confidence and the continuity to express himself, a luxury that has been denied to Rishabh Pant in the last few months.

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Pant is an interesting conundrum. His game appears ideally suited to white-ball cricket, instead it’s these formats that have challenged him the most. He has made a stirring mark in Test matches, especially overseas, but there is no point espousing his match-winning virtues if he isn’t given a long enough rope to allow those virtues to express themselves in the shorter versions. His left-handedness in the upper middle order is a luxury India can ill-afford to overlook; between now and October, workload management or not, the think-tank has to do all it can to provide Pant with the platform his unique talent deserves if he is not to become the nearly-man of the Indian limited-overs landscape.

Just what opportunities, and the quality of opportunities, Rajat Patidar and Rahul Tripathi get will make for interesting viewing. If they are along for the ride only because they have impressed domestically and the IPL, that’s not doing them justice at all. Patidar has been in spectacular form across formats and must feel he has done enough to get a go, though he will be competing for middle-order berths even in a squad that’s without Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Sanju Samson and Deepak Hooda, among others.

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An area where India failed miserably in Australia was in failing to translate their avowed commitment to fearless batting into action. Perhaps the conditions had something to do with that, though it wouldn’t have escaped the attention of the cognoscenti that those who had put that mantra into practice were conspicuously absent by the time the World Cup came around. Like an old tape that hasn’t aged well, the call to walk the talk has picked up in decibels. Bangladesh will not provide all – or even any of – the answers, but especially in the wake of the World Cup debacle, if there is a time to make a statement, it most certainly is now.