World Cup: India beat WI with ball, but expose their own vulnerability with bat

If you believe in the glass-half-full-half empty theory, India’s victory against West Indies is both a cause of celebration and a call for introspection.

Since all stories should start on a happy note, first the reason to celebrate: India’s bowling. After six matches, it is evident India have taken an artillery unit to England for demolishing the opposition with the ball.

Jaspreet Bumrah hurls precision-guided grenades sometimes at the head, sometimes at the toes. Kuldeep Yadav lays land mines with drift and variations of pace. Yuzvendra Chahal snares batsmen out with flight and loop so that he can snipe at them. Together, they ensure batsman walk out to the crease against India with a sense of foreboding, fear of the unknown.

To this band of marauders, serendipity and destiny have added Mohammad Shami, a man with the ability to breach a batsman’s defences with such accuracy that he might have been secretly trained in the art of guiding missiles.

The mayhem this demolition squad can unleash can be captured by two balls against the West Indies.

In the seventh over of the innings, Shai Hope has just cut Shami for a four. The next ball is pitched outside the off stump and Hope goes for a front foot drive. The ball lands on the seam, deviates on pitching, darts through the gap between bat and pad, and clatters into the wood. Hope walks back with a look that has unbelievable written all over it.

A few overs later, Jason Holder is trying to revive the innings. Virat Kohli and Chahal have a mid-over summit and put a fielder at extra cover. You can see it’s a trap –Chahal wants Holder to drive, misread the length and lob a catch towards extra cover. And, like a kid led by Pied Piper, Holder walks straight into it.

By now it is evident why India have remained unbeaten in the World Cup after six matches. It is because their bowlers can attack throughout the innings, take wickets at will, and choke the batting side with brutal discipline and relentless aggression.

Watching them bowl, defend totals that other teams would have found indefensible, conjure yorkers, toe-crushers, in-drifters, in-swingers, is a cause for celebration. This World Cup, India are entertaining and demolishing with the ball like never before. Sometimes it seems so unreal that you’ve to convince yourself it’s not one of those video games where the batsmen are programmed to self-destruct.

The worrying part, of course, is the Indian batting. Once Rohit Sharma gets out, the door is left open for the opposition to test the middle order, where Vijay Shankar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav are making fans reach out for their prayer mats and beads every time they come out to bat.

Shankar, it is most likely, will sit out the next game. At Number 4, he looks out of sorts with his inability to hit big or rotate the strike. He has been thrust onto the big stage without going through proper audition. Unfortunately, he is not performing.

If you can read the signs, it is clear Kohli would do something different about his Number 4. In the game against West Indies, he didn’t ask Shankar to bowl, suggesting that his place may be offered to someone else—perhaps Rishabh Pant—in the next match.

Jadhav has been scratchy and uncertain. There might be a case for replacing him with someone like Dinesh Karthik, who has the ability to finish matches. Since Jadhav’s bowling has hardly been requisitioned by Kohli, his utility as an all-rounder may force a rethink.

That brings us to the biggest dilemma of the World Cup—Dhoni. How exactly do you deal with a champion who has clearly lost some of his skills with the bat but is still the boss behind wickets? When he bats these days, you can see confusion in Dhoni’s eyes—the kind that makes him step out, miss the line and get stumped, provided the ‘keeper can gather the ball cleanly. His running between the wickets—he often settles for one when two can be run, and sometimes declines a sharp single to stay at the non-striker’s end—tells a lot about what is going on in his mind.

Against West Indies, Dhoni managed to strike a few blows in the final over. But, till that late flourish, he was a pale shadow of his former, fearless, free-striking self.

Every victory has a silver-lining. Against West Indies, India’s vulnerability with the bat once Sharma gets out was exposed yet again. India would have gone back after the victory not to a pub, but to a quiet room. They know it is time to introspect, not to celebrate. Their cup of joy is only half full.

Also read: Naseer Hussain’s tweet triggers rare India-Pakistan bonhomie 

World Cup: India have luxury of failure, experiments against West Indies