India XI against W.Indies

As a weakened India without Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer and Raina takes on West Indies in a four ODI series starting tomorrow, Dhoni has a variety of options to choose his playing XI.

Middle Order: With all the usual batsmen available in the team, the middle order is pretty much fixed with Yuvraj, Dhoni and Yusuf at 4, 5 and 6 respectively.

Openers: Gambhir can be partnered to open with either the regular, but inexperienced opener Vijay or one of the other middle order bats who have some experience at the top – Rohit or Kartik. Even though Rohit had mixed results as an opener in the Twenty20 World Cup, I am inclined to take one more chance with him.

No.3: Three batsmen compete for this spot – Rohit, Kartik and Badrinath. Badri probably deserved this chance a year or two ago, but, I am not very sure if the same can be said now. With Rohit being my choice for opener, I prefer to slot Kartik here. Another option might be for Dhoni to come in at three and move Kartik down to five.

No.7: Normally, I would prefer a specialist bowler here instead of a all-rounder. But, considering the weakness in the top order, two all-rounders compete for this spot – Jadeja and Nayar. My preference is for the spinner Jadeja.

Bowlers Harbhajan picks himself. Ojha loses out to the all-rounder at 7. As for the medium/fast bowlers, my first picks, at least for the first couple of games are Ishant, RP Singh and Nehra.

With that, my playing XI for tomorrow’s game is -

1. Gautam Gambhir
2. Rohit Sharma
3. Dinesh Kartik
4. Yuvraj Singh
5. MS Dhoni
6. Yusuf Pathan
7. R Jadeja
8. Harbhajan Singh
9. Ishant Sharma
10. RP Singh
11. Ashish Nehra

India out of T20 World Cup

The West Indians had exposed the Indian top order’s technical inability to cope with fast, accurate short-pitched bowling the other day and the Englishmen exploited it to perfection today bouncing India out of the Twenty20 World Cup.

England came in with the obvious strategy to bounce the Indians and Dhoni’s own response was to promote Jadeja playing his first match of the tournament ahead of the in-form Yuvraj as a pinch-hitter – apparently to ease the pressure off the other star batsmen (Yuvraj, Dhoni and Yusuf). If that was the intention, he should have at least been sent at three ahead of Raina, who was absolutely at sea facing bouncers in the previous match. In the end the pinch-hitter could neither hit out nor get out! When he did eventually get out after scoring 25 off 35 balls in the 14th over, leaving 67 runs to be scored off the last six overs, it was a little too much even for the icy cool Pathan (33 off 17 balls).

Earlier in the day Harbhajan and Jadeja did well to restrict England to 153, particularly after Pietersen (46 off 27 balls) was threatening to lead them to an above par score. But, the Indians conceded too many extras and weren’t sharp in the field. Also, it was baffling to see RP Singh who was most economical bowler on either side not finish his full quota of overs.

Well, this is a reminder that you still need to master the basic cricketing skills to be a successful T20 player. Rohit and Raina – both exceptional talents – need to work out their technical flaws if they are hoping to make it to the next generation Test team. Dhoni, probably needed this break. He has a very talented team at his disposal, he just needs to keep things simple. Hopefully, he will come back - along with some clarity in thinking – rejuvenated.

Dhoni’s batting

Dhoni’s batting on Friday against West Indies has drawn a lot of criticism. Minimizing risk doesn’t mean you shouldn’t rotate strike! Watching him struggling to get singles was tough.

He seems to be struggling to find the right batting position for himself. He seems to be randomly coming in at either 3 or 5. As I said earlier, instead of a fixed position, his batting strategy along with Gambhir should be to take less risk than the others, holding one end up at least until the 15th over allowing the other batsmen to be aggressive at the other end. This means, Dhoni’s batting position is not fixed. He walks in when Gambhir gets out. If Gambhir bats through an innings he doesn’t get to bat (unless the other specialist batsmen are all back in the hut).

Strategically, yesterday’s batting order was perfect (Dhoni came in at the fall of Gambhir’s wicket), but the execution wasn’t.

India’s Batting order

Yuvraj’s late blitz yesterday helped India reach an above par score of 180. But, that didn’t seem possible when both Dhoni and Gambhir were struggling to force the pace in the middle overs.

Dhoni thinks of his role as providing a solid anchor (cut out risky shots, keep the strike rotating, run hard, play safe without getting bogged down, put the bad balls away) at one end, allowing the other stroke players to be naturally aggressive at the other end. I completely agree with this strategy and his role. I also think Gambhir could, should and often does perform a similar role at the top of the order. So, instead of slotting himself at the fixed position three, Dhoni should slot himself as replacing Gambhir.

In fact, instead of a fixed batting order, each batsmen’s position should depend on the wicket to fall. My batting order would begin with Gambhir and Sehwag as openers. Dhoni will be slotted to follow Gambhir. Raina would follow Sehwag (or Dhoni if both Gambhir and Dhoni fall before Sehwag). Yuvraj would follow Raina (or Dhoni if Sehwag, Gambhir and Dhoni are all back in the dugout). Yusuf follows Yuvraj/Raina/Dhoni with Irfan and the tail following Yusuf.

The idea is for Gambhir/Dhoni to hold one end up with the other stroke makers taking up the risk of scoring aggressively at the other end. This means, if Gambhir bats through the innings, Dhoni will not get to bat (unless all the other batsmen – Sehwag, Raina, Yuvraj and Yusuf are all back in the dugout). Based on current team composition and form, I think this is a good batting strategy.

Team India at the T20 World Cup

Four specialist batsmen (Gambhir, Sehwag, Raina, Yuvraj), three of whom are part-time bowlers; two specialist pace bowlers (Zaheer, Ishant); two specialist spinners (Harbhajan, Ojha); one all-rounder who bowls spin (Yusuf); one all-rounder who bowls medium-pace (Ifran); one wicket-keeper batsman (Dhoni), who is the captain. I love India’s team composition for this world cup!