On 24 October, Shaheen Shah Afridi faced four balls in his first over, dismissing Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul. India could never recover from 6 for 2 and could score 151 runs for 7 wickets.
A week later it was Trent Boult who did the damage, taking 3 for 20 as India rolled to 120 for 7 in 20 overs.
The common thread in those two defeats, which ensured India’s first-round exit, was that the opening wickets were batted separately. There is no room for strength in T20 cricket even if you lose early wickets and India has to pay the price for playing old-style cricket.
After the World Cup, Virat Kohli relinquished the T20 captaincy and a new team of coaches took over under the leadership of Rahul Dravid.
With Rohit as the captain in the shortest format, it was back to the drawing board for India. The first thing the new captain did was for his team to insist on playing fearless and consistently aggressive cricket during the 20 overs of each innings. This would inevitably mean that there would be days when they would erupt. To deal with this, India worked on creating depth in the batting order.
Key personnel were also identified for certain roles. Dinesh Karthik as a promoter is one such example. Hardik Pandya’s return to full fitness ensured that another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
“We wanted to change a lot of things, and we addressed what went wrong for us in the last World Cup,” Rohit said on the eve of India’s match against Pakistan. “Now it’s time to put those ideas, those plans into action. Look, no team will be 100% perfect, but as a team we want to do as many things right as possible.”
Injuries didn’t help late in the lead-up to the World Cup, with Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah being ruled out. While Axar Patel has ensured that India will not miss bowler Jadeja, it is now up to Mohammed Shami.
Shami hasn’t played any T20Is since November last year, and when he was scheduled to go into the home series against Australia, Covid-19 let him down. His comeback is probably something for which India did not plan carefully in its preparations.
“When Bumrah got injured, we always wanted someone experienced in the lineup and Shami was the right choice for us,” Rohit said. “With the kind of experience he has, we know he will never be short of match practice. I think she is very well prepared. He came to Brisbane a long time ago and did a few sessions with the whole team.”
The logic of playing this new brand of cricket is true and it is clear that the batting line-up had a whole-hearted buyout. In bilateral series, they have been able to roll out this style of play, and now it is time to talk in a high-pressure event where you face a new team in every match.
In doing so, players have been given the necessary protections to play with freedom. Each player is not judged by his results in one or two games, but by whether the team is playing the right kind of cricket. Once players have that protection, it’s easy to push the envelope and risk some more – which this format requires.
“I think the more you keep things simple, the easier it becomes for you to work and do things. That has been our focus,” said Rohit. “We have talked about this constantly. How can we give ourselves a little rest and not worry that we haven’t won an ICC trophy in nine years. It is my personal belief that if you think too much about the past, you focus on the present Can’t concentrate.”
The future of Indian T20 cricket is now. All that is left for this group is to put pressures and expectations behind and wait for the opportunity to end their drought in global events.
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