India’s young bowling attack will be in focus when the hosts take on Australia in the second T20I of the five-match series in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.
In the first T20I in Vizag on Thursday, the Indian bowlers had an off-day with Prasidh Krishna (1/50) and Ravi Bishnoi (1/54) ending up as the major victims on the occasion.
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Arshdeep Singh (0/41) went wicketless in his four overs and so did Axar Patel (0/32) and Mukesh Kumar (0/29).
Arshdeep and Prasidh went for 10.25 and 12.50 runs per over while leg-spinner Bishnoi were carted around for 13.50 runs per over.
As a result of the bowlers’ below-par display, Australia went onto post 208/3 on the board, with Josh Inglis slamming a 47-ball century.
In a format like T20, it is not an uncommon sight to see bowlers getting the stick, but those three bowlers lacked imagination and variety needed on such surfaces on that day.
India’s ambition to double the series lead will depend a lot on them significantly improving their produce here.
It’s not an impossible task either as Mukesh showed. The pace bowler mixed up his deliveries well the yorkers, bouncers, wide deliveries around off-stump and so on to contain the Aussie batters.
So, the other frontline bowlers now have a route map to follow in the second match.
In their defence, one can say that many of them were playing top-level cricket after a gap, but such is the nature of schedule these days the players need to put their best foot forward in the first available opportunity.
It is particularly true in the case of someone like Bishnoi, who has been talked about as one to look forward to as far as the white ball formats are concerned.
But he was vastly disappointing at Vizag and looked rudderless once Josh Inglis went on the offensive against him.
Bishnoi will have to realise that he cannot rely on a sequence of googlies to make an impact as it can lead to a sense of familiarity in batters, and he will require drastic course correction here.
Prasidh too was equally underwhelming, more so because he was a part of India’s 50-over World Cup squad recently and had a chance to work with the top-tier players and coaches at nets.
However, there was no trace of that effort in his bowling as his attempt to purchase bounce from the track was treated with disdain by Australian batters.
However, India will have not much to complain about in the batting department as skipper Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Rinku Singh and Yashasvi Jaiswal displayed fine touch against the Aussie bowlers, though a bit second string.
Suryakumar, Rinku and Jaiswal met the quick-scoring demands of a high chase effortlessly, though Kishan took a few overs to settle down before hitting the overdrive.
India will hope for a similar fire from them in the second match as well, and will bank on Kishan to reduce the number of dot balls during his tenure.
He was able to accelerate in the opening game after making 21 off 19 balls but the left-hander would not want an encore of that in this match.
Ruturaj Gaikwad, who was run out in the previous match, and Tilak Varma too will be eyeing some runs against their name as they are part of India’s journey into T20 future.
However, while the focus will be on cricket, the eyes will be on the weather too. It rained in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday and there is rain forecast for Sunday afternoon as well. What’s promising is that the skies could very well clear up by match time, which is scheduled to start at 7 pm.
The Aussie camp, on the other hand, will be looking to build on a few nuggets of positives from the first match.
Inglis’ hundred, his first in top-flight cricket across formats, while coming in as an opener might have given them a breathing space on the road that leads to the T20 World Cup.
But the move to promote Steve Smith as opener might not have fetched the desired result in its entirety.
The veteran right-hander made a 52 off 41 balls, but he laboured to manufacture runs even on a smooth deck as Inglis’ daredevilry ably masked Smith’s struggles.
Like their Indian counterparts, the Aussie bowlers, except Jason Behrendorff, also could not apply the squeeze on the rampaging Suryakumar and company.
They will also be looking for a markedly improved outing in that department here and as part of that the Aussies might just give a go to leg-spinner Adam Zampa in place of Tanvir Sangha.
Squads: India: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad (vice-captain), Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Shivam Dubey, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar.
Australia: Matthew Wade (captain), Aaron Hardie, Jason Behrendorff, Sean Abbott, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Tanveer Sangha, Matt Short, Steve Smith, Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa.
Match starts at 7 PM.
With PTI inputs
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