BackWest Indies’ all-round dominance will test patchy India
MS Dhoni's men must reconcile to life without Yuvraj Singh and hope top order steps up to take on the very driven, very talented Caribbean side
PremiumPhoto: AFP
When you talk West Indies cricket, the clichés come tumbling. Free-spirited. Gay abandon. Entertainers supreme. None of which is untrue, of course.
There is, however, more to West Indies cricket in the limited-overs game than just these lazy, convenient associations. You can’t be a consistently serious force sheerly on the back of free spirit, gay abandon and a high entertainment quotient. There has to be a high level of skill, and of that, there is little shortage in Darren Sammy’s ranks, no matter if the skill-sets aren’t talked about that often.
Chris Gayle is among the most destructive batsmen in this, or any, format. Dwayne Bravo is every captain’s dream, an all-round package worth his own only with the bat, only with the ball and, most likely, only on the field as well. Andre Russell is a tremendous athlete, frenetic with the bat and furious with the ball. Samuel Badree, the rolling legspinner, is the No. 1 Twenty20 International bowler according to the ICC rankings. Marlon Samuels is a classical batsman capable, if the mood so seizes him, of going from disinterested tuk-tuk to supersonic jet in less time than it takes to bat an eyelid. And just to put things in perspective, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine are not even here.
This West Indian T20 unit is awe-inspiring, muscular if occasionally one-dimensional batting—why run when I can hit boundaries?—married to a wonderful amalgam of pace and spin, and an athleticism that comes naturally but that has also been honed by hours of practice.
More than anything else, though, Sammy’s Class of ’16 has been brought even closer by an ‘us against the world’ outlook that is no figment of their fertile imagination. ‘The world’ is a loose euphemism for the West Indies Cricket Board, the slight in the lead-up to the ICC World Twenty20 stemming from pay disputes acting as the perfect spur for a proud unit marshalled supremely by a proud but grounded captain.
It is this rolling, thundering, formidable juggernaut that India, patchy India, must overcome in the second semifinal of the World T20 at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday. Firing at no more than 70% throughout their Group 2 Super 10 campaign, India made every game a knockout game for themselves after wiping the floor in their opening match against New Zealand. Each of their three subsequent wins has been attained nervily, two of them stemming almost exclusively from the brilliance of Virat Kohli.
In both those Kohli-inspired triumphs, India were well served by the young man’s association with original hero Yuvraj Singh. In Kolkata, Singh was an almost equal partner in the match-turning fourth-wicket association of 61 against Pakistan; in Mohali three nights ago, hampered by a twisted ankle, Singh limped and hobbled along during a stabilising fourth-wicket stand worth 45, which set the base for the final Kohli flourish that settled the contest emphatically.
India must reconcile to life without Singh for the rest of their campaign—which could end on Thursday or extend to Sunday’s title clash at the Eden Gardens. The once-mercurial left-hand batsman whose role has since been redefined by the passage of time, a plethora of injuries and the infusion of new blood, was ruled out of the tournament on Wednesday, forcing Mahendra Singh Dhoni to break from the pattern of continuity that India have fallen into since the three-match T20I series in Australia in late January.
Manish Pandey has been drafted into the squad as Singh’s replacement. He should also be the logical choice as Singh’s replacement in the playing XI too, despite the long-standing presence in the squad of Ajinkya Rahane and Pawan Negi, whose all-round skills offer an additional bowling option, but that might be self-defeating, considering how the top order, Kohli apart, has been misfiring. Pandey can easily slot into the No. 5 position—Rahane’s inclusion will most certainly mean a demotion to that spot of Suresh Raina, who like Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma has been desperately short on runs all tournament long. As he has shown in domestic cricket, the IPL and during the Sydney ODI in January, he can hold his own with the bat, both in an accumulatory and in an aggressive role. India would have been happy not to have had to face this conundrum in a crunch game, but then again, who is to say that every game is not a crunch game in a tournament as full of stakes as the World T20?
India have always been strong believers in focussing on their strengths and not worrying too much about the opposition, but they will have taken note of the West Indian meltdown in Nagpur against Afghanistan. Admittedly, the 2012 champions were without Gayle and had already qualified for the semifinal, but the manner in which they capitulated against an inexperienced side when confronted with decent spin bowling must have heartened R. Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in particular.
West Indies’ travails against the turning ball are well documented, and last Sunday, Afghanistan reopened old wounds on their way to their most famous victory to date. The Rashid Khan-led spin component was aided by a slow turner at the VCA Stadium in Jamtha. India’s spinners won’t quite get a similar track on which to ply their wares, but this is unlikely to be the belter where Gayle smashed England into submission a fortnight ago, or where England hunted down South Africa’s 229 with ridiculous ease.
That this will be the second game of the evening on the same track—the West Indies-New Zealand Women’s semifinal will precede the men’s game—should also contribute to the slowing up of a surface that has been worked on with great diligence over the last two days. India will therefore hope that Dhoni’s luck with the coin changes, but more importantly, they will hope for something that is in their control—runs from the top order so that Kohli isn’t always under pressure at No. 3, or Dhoni at No. 6.
Two former champions, two crack T20 sides, two teams that covet the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the same, and different, reasons. East v West. What does Thursday night have in store?
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