Why India is Promising but not a Winning Side Overseas

If you are an ardent cricket fan from India, you would have been gutted with the overall performance of the Indian Cricket Team, more so after the fourth ODI that took place at the Manuka Oval, Canberra, on 20th January,2016. Not many would have given India a chance to winning atleast one match , let alone the series. But the supreme form of the Indian batting Core comprising of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli , in addition to the falt pitches and the second string Australian Bowling attack has given a tiny hope for the fans. Now, there are many opinions and theories out there as to why the team consistently fails overseas and i too have one.

Indian Batting:

 Not in anyone's wildest dreams would have thought that Rohit Sharma would be where he is , a couple of years ago.Hell, he himself would not have dreamt about it.It took him eight years to cement his place in the team, but, his contributions to the team in the past year have been phenomenal. He carried the onus of opening for the team on his shoulders since Shikhar Dhawan has had a horrible year. There is a lot of scope for improvement in his batting , yet he is doing the job for the team now. He starts slowly, builds the innings, saves his partner, saves his wicket, and if he manages to stay until the end, erupts like a volcano in the slog overs. Its very complicated to deconstruct his methods, On one hand, he consumes a lot of dots ,although the percentage is far less compared to his earlier stints as an opener. On the other hand, he has the stroke play of a certain Yuvraj(OK i am kidding) which is needed in the middle and slog overs, in other words, an enforcer. In a way he is filling the role of a middle order bat when he does click with his big innings.This is not to say that now he is the best batsman in the world, he is no where near the best, mind you. In this particular series though , he performed exceptionally well, played out of his skins and has truly shown his potential.

 And then there is Virat Kohli, fondly called by his fans as King Virat. I can only think of one batsman who was called The King,the greatest ODI batsman ever, Sir Vivian Richards. It would be too early and also immature  to compare Sir Viv and Virat, But this man definitely means business. He constantly develops his game, grows as a player, a captain and a team man. An year ago, his average in ODIs in Australia was lingering around 15 , he didn't play the sweep. His average in the ongoing series against the same opposition is around 100 and he plays the sweep as well as anybody. Some people in the cricketing circles think he is one of the most mentally tough blokes the game has seen , which is not a surprise looking at his achievements , also tells us why he is considered the best, despite having limited skills at the start of his career in comparison to the prodigiously talented Sharma.

 I am completely convinced that Virat Kohli is the future of the Indian Cricket, unless fate has some cruel twists to offer. Rohit Sharma, well you never know with him, some say he is in the form of his life, and this golden run might not lost long. I have a feeling that if he , like Virat, excels in developing his game, and becomes consistent he could be one of the most devastating batsmen the game has ever seen.

The Problem

So what could possibly be a problem if you have batsmen of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma's Caliber in your team? That is the Problem. One of these two batsmen scores heavily for the team almost always , takes the load completely onto themselves, something our captain is proud and never fails to mention in his press conferences, which leaves us with the question, what if there is a lump in their form? You cannot rule out a situation where they both fail say, during the final of a world cup, or a semi finals(Remember the 2015 World Cup?) There is Rahane, a great promise and already a proven in test cricket, but you can safely say , he has not completely arrived. Dhoni is a mere shadow of himself, still a decent batsmen, but not anywhere near his prime. Then comes the scary question, the lower middle order! Yuvraj and Dhoni for many years carried the task of finishing the games for india. They did it so well, that we have taken it for granted that it will always be as solid. Raina to some extent, filled the gap Yuvi has left , but his woes against the short ball and moving ball are universal now and he didn't seem to have found an answer for that.

Now a typical Australian innings goes like this, either Warner or Finch smashes the hell out of the oppositoin bowlers during the initial overs, Smith almost singlehandedly controls the middle overs, followed by bailey or another batsmen and have Maxwell or Faulkner to finish the innings. Everybody has a role in the team , and more often than not, they all get to do their respective jobs. Dhoni, while maintains the need for an exposure for the youngsters in pressure situations , slightly contradicts with his own idea by asking his best batsmen to stay until the end of the innings as much as possible. As i mentioned earlier in the article, the reason why its a hard to deconstruct Rohit's method of batting is , India wants to use him as an opener(given his affinity for hook and pull), so you have an advantage in the initial overs , because he almost always succeeds in getting a bounday off the short balls, and also wants him to do the job in the middle order , since he is one batsman in the team who is extremely good against the turning ball and can play those big shots to release pressure.

This means that Rohit, often has to play safe during the initial overs, whilst also doing his job, explains us why he consumes many dot balls even in his best innings. While he is no master in strike rotation like Virat , he added this facet of the game to his repertoire. Even Virat, being the fearless cricketer that he is , has to play conservative cricket during a portion of his innings due to a lack of depth in the batting or the fact that he is the best batsman and so can do the job for the team during the slog overs. You cannot say, but this leaves a huge gap in the middle overs.

The Solution :

Let's assume that if Rohit and Virat plays their natural game , India would reach 200 in every match during the 30 over mark , but lose both of them in this process. Our lower middle order should explode something like how rohit would during the slog overs. But you cannot expect a certain Gurkeerat or a Hardik Pandya to hit from the word go, this is international cricket mind you.India has to take the gamble. They should force their lower middle order to perform. Retain the players who can do the job and drop the ones who can't. I still wonder why Ravindra Jadeja is called an Allrounder when is clearly a bowler who can bat a bit. We all know that Ravindra jadeja was groomed for the role of an All Rounder. But he was never convincing when he got the opportunity to perform as an All-Rounder, atleast not at the highest level.

One theory could be to drop Rohit down the order and promote Rahane up the order. Rahane is no Kaif or Badrinath with the bat, he can play those attacking shots when needed, and also rotates the strike well, although not as destructive as Rohit. Rohit can come down the order, bide his time in the middle and explode late in the innings which we so badly need from him. Virat can play with a free mind since this change means, our middle order looks more stronger now. But this is a big gamble to play , as this change might result in Rohit losing his way and we cannot afford to lose him given the lack of resources in the team.

Another theory would be to build a team and assign specific roles, make sure the team follows the template in every match. India are anyway losing the matches , even when the batsmen are playing out of their skins , why not give the middle order the exposure that they need. Include Hardik Pandya in the side, assign him the role of an exploder. Bring back Raina and groom him for the role of consolidator (i.e., Dhoni's Role). It took eight years for Rohit to finally deliver the promise , and all the while the team kept the faith in him and he atleast got the opportunities! We can never build a team if we are scared of losing, and have no trust in the players. Until we take the steps to build a team, we will always be Home Track Bullies and a Promising Side But not a Winning side.

Note :
I don't even feel like talking about Indian bowling as i feel i am too small to talk about our legends!