Like detectives returning to the scene, India’s support staff would have pored over the Ahmedabad defeats searching for answers. They needn’t look too hard. The evidence is in the field placements, the lengths bowled, and the shots that keep finding fielders. Rival teams have read India’s batsmen — and are exploiting what they’ve found.
Abhishek Sharma’s leg-side labours
An imperiously-disguised knuckle ball from Marco Jansen ended Abhishek’s brief resurgence. He was prematurely committed to the stroke and nowhere near the ball — neither under it nor on top of it — to wield any control. He miscued, predictably. He could console himself that it wasn’t an off-spinner that got him, but the manner of the dismissal would sting. Yet again, it was the leg-side carrot — the off-side packed, spaces left on the leg-side (all fielders apart from the long-leg inside circle) — that did him in. The problem is he relies too heavily on hand-eye coordination for such shots. Unless the ball is short enough to pull off the back foot, he tends to stay crease-bound when heaving, far from the ball’s pitch, throwing his long limbs at it rather than meeting it. The lengths have been accurate too. Anything shorter than good length he would fleece; anything fuller, he would thump down the ground. So they bowl neither.
Even the spinners have cottoned on. The Netherlands’ Aryan Dutt and Pakistan’s Salman Agha pulled their lengths back to induce the false shot — hard lengths on the stumps, angling inwards. Like a nail to a magnet, Abhishek can’t resist. He goes for the wild swipe even when he is in no position to play it, loses his shape, and the result is inevitable. Against Dutt, it was a blind waft. Against Agha, he couldn’t get under the ball.
Tilak, death by dot balls
A montage of his dismissals would frustrate Tilak Varma as much as it would any watching him. Just the second ball he faced against South Africa, he skipped down the track, manufactured room and tried to slice Marco Jansen through mid-off. The ball from the six-foot-eight Jansen bounced a fraction more than expected and Tilak found only the edge. It wasn’t a counterpunch to the situation — it was the self-imposed pressure of dot balls finding an outlet at the wrong moment. Perhaps the intense scrutiny of his strike rate (118.88) had something to do with it. The captain and support staff had reportedly told him to exercise restraint, given India’s habit of losing early wickets. But an instinct-versus-instruction tussle appears to be playing out inside him, and it keeps costing him his starts.
Against the Netherlands, he needlessly reached for a wide ball outside off and mishit to deep cover. Against Pakistan, he premeditated a sweep so early that Saim Ayub simply pushed the length up and pinned him in front. Against Namibia, he slashed outside the crease and was foxed by Gerhard Erasmus’s looping flight. The pattern is consistent.
It raises a fair question: does Tilak have the strike-rotating capacity to bat in the accumulator mould when the situation demands it? Thirty dot balls from 97 deliveries this tournament suggest he has struggled to find the singles, particularly against spinners bowling on a good length at middle stump. Too often he bunts it straight to mid-on or short mid-wicket, the pressure builds, and an ill-timed attacking shot follows.
Surya’s unusual leg-side struggles
It’s the Suryakumar circle. The region between square leg and the wicketkeeper is Suryakumar Yadav’s theatre. It remains productive for him, yet sharp bowlers have found ways to turn it into a trap. They invite him to the stroke by placing fine leg square, knowing his paddles and pick-up shots tend to travel fine off those rubbery wrists. The higher the pace, the better it suits him — but the uneven surfaces have made him watchful of slower balls, and that watchfulness has left him slightly late against the quicker ones.
The Corbin Bosch delivery that dismissed him clocked 144 kph. Surya shuffled across to whip it fine, but it rushed him — a toe-ended catch to mid-wicket, his head fractionally still, his balance slightly off. The Netherlands’ Kyle Klein’s ball was much slower, a leg-side half volley that should have been put away, yet he somehow whipped it straight to the long-leg fielder. Unable to fully trust the pace and bounce of these surfaces, he has at times been caught between two minds. He remains India’s highest run-scorer so far, but it has been a grind rather than a saunter — a strike rate of 127 tells that story quietly.
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