Kohli Reduced to Tears, Manchester Muddle

Kohli Reduced to Tears, Manchester Muddle On 23 June, 1983 Kapil Dev lofted the Prudential Cup at Lord’s; underdogs India had bested the West Indies. Twenty eight years later on 2 April, 2011 talismanic Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit a soaring six to raise the World Cup as rambunctious crowds savoured every moment. Cometh 9 July 2019; the much vaunted and physically fit Indians capitulated to the Kiwis on a pitch that imploded. Excuses were being bandied about by those at the helm and India did not play at Lord’s on 14 July, 2019. As wickets tumbled against the Kiwis and India were struggling at 27 for 4, the faithful were reminded of Kapil Dev’s knock of 175 not out against Zimbabwe in 1982; when the team was reeling at 17 for 5, Kapil bailed out India from the brink. However, on television screens one could see Virat Kohli confabulating with coach Ravi Shastri. Perhaps it was then that it was decided that Karthik would be promoted in the batting line-up and a pusillanimous decision was conveyed to the soldier of Indian cricket, who was seen biting his bat rather than biting the bullet. We lost the game in the mind. “What if Dhoni got out? Who would have held the innings together? Thus we promoted Karthik,” remarked Shastri after the team crashed out. “It was those thirty minutes when wickets fell in a heap which cost us the match,” was Kohli’s refrain. The coach and the captain cleanly forgot robust thought process, past history and the necessity of forming a correct balance at the core of the team. As the adage goes, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Equilibrium, efficacious thinking and learning from history are the essence of life. On hindsight, Ravi Shastri rued that the Indian team did not have a middle order batsman. Yes, the team no longer possesses the likes of Laxman, Ganguli, Kaif or Yuvraj but Ambati Rayudu was one of the reserve players. Alas, when the moment arrived to draft the player following Vijay Shankar’s injury, he was ignored and Mayank Agarwal was co-opted. Rayudu, supposedly ‘short-fused’ was deeply devastated. Piqued and infuriated, he thanked the BCCI and all his former captains and quit all forms of cricket. He reserved the right to play overseas. Was it the curse of Ambati Rayudu which robbed us of the World Cup? It is intriguing that there were three wicket-keepers in Dhoni, Rishab Pant and Karthik in the team. What a luxury! Rishab Pant, an accomplished opener replaced Shikhar Dhawan after the latter’s unfortunate injury. Yet he played in the middle order while KL Rahul, a prolific middle order player was persisted with as an opener. Though he performed admirably, the fact that he wasted precious overs was forgotten as India won those matches. Mayank Agarwal was selected in place of Vijay Shankar (again injured), but did nothing more than warm the benches. It is always sagacious to play specialist players at their specialist spots, something which Australia always does; five World Cup wins certainly draw attention to this sagacious strategy. Conventional wisdom should have prompted the Indian think-tank to play Ashwin, an ace off-spinner and a handy batsman (having played 111 ODIs, bagging 150 wickets with an economy rate of 4.92 and having scored 675 runs at an average of 16.07 including a fifty). Ashwin and Jadeja have always been a formidable combination and hunted in pairs. Let us contrast this with the statistics of Chahal and Kedar Jadhav. The former has played 41 ODIs scoring 34 runs and bowled 2173 balls scalping 72 wickets at an average of 4.89. Kedar Jadhav has on the other hand played 65 games scoring 1254 runs and bagging 27 wickets at an average of 5.17 per game. Suffice to say that perhaps in the blustering conditions of England it would have been perspicacious to play a seasoned campaigner. Hopefully we learn from the unfortunate tepid end and choose the best 15 and a well-rounded 11 in the T-20 campaign.