ICC World Twenty20: India set for a Kiwi tasting

Will it be yesterday once more, rather 2007 yet again for India at these T20 Worlds? Well, it’s been a long time. Dhoni, for one, is nine years older, has since chopped his flowing locks, gotten married, fathered a girl child, is no longer skipper of all formats, has lost the last 50 over World Cup of his career and may be at the helm for the last time in the shortest format too. Chennai Super Kings is no longer a name and the skipper has had a tough time surviving what fell out of the Pandora’s box during the last IPL.

Top this with the growing form and profile of Virat Kohli and you have a completely different era, a different dressing room and different approach to T20 World Cup.

So, will India fly sky high in 2016 or not? There’s home advantage to buttress that hope. There’s form, balance and a fit as fiddle squad too with quite some muscle warming the bench. Top that with the withered acumen of other competing teams, most of whom are in transition, and it looks good to go for the Indians under Dhoni this time of the year.

That’s what the book says. Reality, as all the major captains have said, can be a tad different. It’s about that day, that match and a format where anyone howsoever high and mighty has potential to fall without premise. That’s the beauty of T20 cricket and that’s its inglorious uncertainty too.

So, when India meet New Zealand at Nagpur, it will be cautious despite all the lionising.

It will be circumspect of the conditions that may make rockstars of all hues look ordinary mortals struggling to make some noise in the middle. The conditions though will be more alien for the Kiwis than for the Indians who have, over the last decade or so, learnt how to tackle hot and way off the road venues like Nagpur.

Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson acceded as much at his pre-match Press conference wherein he said, “acclimatising to conditions and the pitch here would be key.”

Having lost their rockstar Brendon McCullum to retirement just before this big outing, the Kiwis look more ordinary than they might be, especially due to the power statistic of not having ever lost a T20 match to India thus far (in five outings they have won 4 and one was washed out), and that includes a World Cup match in 2007. Just the other day, they thrashed Sri Lanka in the warm-up game and lost by a whisker to England.

Dhoni, who has confessedly been in Gear 6 of performance, winning 10 of 11 matches played so far in this format this year, is quite aware of this first he needs to score against the Kiwis. With a sound trio upfront in a flowing Rohit Sharma, a back to business Shikhar Dhawan and a scintillating Virat Kohli, a happening bowling department with the likes of Bumrah still to be fathomed by opponents, live wire fielding and an injury less young squad, there seems no reason why India would lose to the Kiwis on home front. Not when MSD is looking for a swan song to sing to his grandchildren. Not when he can do so on home ground. Not when his team-mates may have made up their mind to give him a Sachin-like farewell after the Worlds.

squad:

 India:  Mahendra Singh Dhoni (C), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Pawan Negi, Ajinkya Rahane, Mohammed Shami.

New Zealand: Kane Williamson (C), Martin Guptill, Henry Nicholls, Luke Ronchi, Ross Taylor, Colin Munro, Mitchell Santer, Nathan McCullum, Grant Elliott, Mitchell McClenaghan, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Adam Milne, Ish Sodhi, Corey Anderson. 

Source: The Pioneer, 15 March, 2016