Death bowling - A major concern for India ahead of the T20 World Cup

Sometime back, the concern for Team India was the batting. There were matches in which when the top order used to give a stable start, the middle order collapsed and vice versa. Nonetheless, the current batting line-up is more flexible and there is an improved batting approach and execution.

 

However, the major concern has now been death bowling. The duo of Rahul Dravid-Rohit Sharma has been struggling to find the correct set of bowlers who can perform well in the death overs. For instance, in the last matches, India batting first, had to defend 54, 42, and 41 runs in the last four overs but couldn't and lost all three matches. A blessing in disguise is that they have batted exceptionally well in these matches.

 

Since Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, and Bumrah were not playing this match, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar was the best option left for the Indian team for the death bowling. But his form is a concern. Speaking of his performance, he has conceded 19 runs in the 19th over, whereas he conceded 14 overs in the 19th over against Sri Lanka. On both occasions, India lost the match. Arshdeep Singh bowled the 20th over on both occasions, and the youngster bowled really well on those. It is pertinent to mention that since the start of 2020 to prior to Asia Cup 2022, Bhuvneshwar has been the third-best Indian death bowler in all of T20 cricket. The team management will be looking to improve his death bowling ahead of the T20 World Cup 2022.

 

On the other hand, there is Harshal Patel who has been included in the T20 World Cup squad and Shami has been in the list of Standby Players. He made comeback from injury and went for 49 runs in his four, including 22 in the 18th over.

 

Speaking of the same concern, skipper Rohit Sharma sighted the lapse in bowling and letting go of chances on the field as the reasons for the Indian team's loss against Australia. "I don't think we bowled well. 200 is a good score to defend, and we didn't take our chances on the field. It was a great effort from our batters, but bowlers were not quite there," stated Rohit.

 

He also mentioned that the Mohali ground is known for being a high-scoring one, where a 200 plus target does not guarantee a win. "There are things we need to look at, but it was a great game for us to understand what went wrong. We know this is a high-scoring ground. You can't relax even if you get 200," he said.

 

Being vocal about defending 60 runs at the death overs, "You can back yourself to defend 60 runs in the final 4 overs. We were not able to take that extra wicket. That was the turning point, if we would have taken another wicket, things would have been different," mentioned the 35-year-old. "You can't score 200 everyday, you need to bat well. Hardik batted really well to get us there. We need to look at our bowling before the next game," said the Indian captain.

 

All in all, India and its team management should be looking to fill these gaps in order to be "prepared" for the World Cup.