India at T20 World Cup: Cautious optimism or naked aggression?

Every India World Cup squad has the same dilemma: fans want to know all the details — the surprise picks, omissions, their hows and whys. You can tell which side of the line the current T20 World Cup squad falls on by looking at the social media response. It’s true what they say: the more things change, the more they remain the same. The year and venues may be different, but the theme remains the same with this Indian team — ageless experience over youthful exuberance.

T20 is fast becoming a hyper-specialised format with clear skill sets and the possibility of different starting XI combinations based on oppositions and conditions. The reason lies in the evolution of the game. In its origins, T20 cricket was played by individuals who would look to adopt a risk-free approach at the start before upping the ante. It was about driving the opposition back systematically. There was scepticism about shedding caution completely in a format where each over is five per cent of the game. That was until West Indies, in 2016, and then England, in 2022, persuaded the world that naked aggression was perhaps the future.

Those transformations worked because these teams had ample playing resources and a glut of attacking batsmen to pick from. But with the selection choices of this Indian team, one always gets the feeling that it needs to try really hard in ICC T20 tournaments to conquer the final frontier.

In T20 World Cups, India appears to have a strong preference for conventional batting depth over specialised power-hitters. However, there was a complete about-turn in the time between the last T20 World Cup and this one, when it temporarily jettisoned that approach by including the likes of Rinku Singh, who played 15 T20Is, Tilak Verma (16), and Jitesh Sharma (9) in its playing XIs. Yet two of these three did not make the cut for the World Cup, while Rinku is in the reserves.

They say the IPL is long enough for you to play yourself in and out of form. India’s captain and vice-captain can vouch for the latter.

Returning to action after five months due to an ankle injury that he suffered during the ODI World Cup last October, vice-captain Hardik Pandya, India’s likely fourth pace-bowling option, bowled his full quota of four overs only five times in IPL 2024. The Mumbai Indians captain often bowled with the new ball this year, ahead of Jasprit Bumrah, and conceded 10.25 runs per over in this phase while picking up only two wickets. With the bat, Hardik made 216 at a strike rate of 143.0 and was dismissed 12 times in 13 innings.

Meanwhile, India skipper Rohit Sharma began the season on a high, even hitting his second IPL century — his first since 2012 — in MI’s loss against CSK, but his form tapered off as the season wore on. Rohit hit 89 in 76 balls in the PowerPlay with a strike rate of 117 in his last seven outings, with a dot ball percentage of over 50. He was dismissed inside the first six overs in five of the last seven innings. His loss of form will be a concern for the Men in Blue.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Suryakumar Yadav, India’s flamboyant No. 4, returned for Mumbai Indians from an injury layoff to hit three fifties and a century in 11 innings. Virat Kohli, who will play his sixth T20 World Cup, also went past 9000 runs in T20 cricket on Indian soil in the must-win game against Chennai Super Kings, making him the first player with 9000-plus T20 runs in any country. Kohli has tried to be the PowerPlay enforcer for his team, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, hitting 33 fours and 20 sixes while striking north of 160 in that phase.

RCB has reaped the rewards of one key Kohli evolution, and India would hope for more of the same. The sweep has been a key scoring option for Kohli to counter spin in the middle overs this IPL. Essentially, it appears that Kohli’s strategy has shifted from rotating the strike against spin to looking for boundary options. It was on full display during his unbeaten 70 off 44 against Gujarat Titans in a league match, where he employed the slog-sweep and the conventional sweep with gay abandon.

“I’ve brought out the slog-sweep to the spinners. I just mentally put myself in that situation, and I didn’t practise it at all,” Kohli had said about the change in approach.

“I know I can hit it because I’ve hit it a lot in the past. So, I just felt like I needed to take a bit more risk, and for me, that shot was something that I used to hit regularly back in the day. And that’s allowing me to hit off the back foot as well, because I’m always looking to expose that side of the field against the spin.

“For me, that has been a massive factor in this IPL. So, I think it just takes a bit more conviction to take out that thought that props up: ‘what if you get out’. I’ve been managing to stay ahead of that thought in this IPL, and that’s really helped me in the middle overs in this IPL, keeping my strike rate up and keeping the scoring rate going for the team as well.” The realisation that T20 matches aren’t about absorbing pressure and attacking on the break, at least not all the time, is timely. Going into the bunker is never the solution. In the top three, there must also be an attacking threat, ideally initiated by somebody with a wide palette of shots. Kohli has been rightly criticised for letting the ball drop after the PowerPlay in the past, but this current version of him does fit the bill in more ways than one.

The selectors also deserve credit for picking Shivam Dube while his stocks are high. Chennai Super Kings used Dube as a specialist against spin. His strike rate of 155.54 against spin is a direct result of his big reach, power, and clear intent. Dube, though, has a discernible weakness against pace, especially well-directed bouncers. Teams strategically used the two-bouncer-per-over rule, introduced in this IPL, to keep him quiet at times, but with no such provision at the World Cup, the left-hander is likely to get some breathing space.

While the ongoing IPL may have turned out to be a run-fest, the perception surrounding the upcoming T20 World Cup is that conditions in the USA and especially the Caribbean might be a little less batter-friendly.

As a result, the selectors have packed the squad with as many as four spin-bowling options. All of India’s group matches have got either a 9.30 am or 10.30 am start, which rules out the possibility of dew troubling the tweakers while gripping the ball and imparting spin while delivering.

And then there’s the thing nobody is working up a sweat about yet, but frankly, it’s an area that is key to redressing the bat-ball balance during the World Cup: India’s pace attack. With the exception of redoubtable Jasprit Bumrah, the other two members — Mohammed Siraj and Arshdeep Singh — have had an up-and-down IPL season.

While Siraj has conceded close to 10 runs an over in the IPL PowerPlay so far, taking five wickets while averaging close to 50, Arshdeep has been slightly better, taking seven wickets in the PowerPlay at an economy rate of close to nine and an average of 34. Siraj’s struggles have spilled over into the death overs, where he currently has three wickets at an eco rate of 9.15. Arshdeep has more wickets between 17 and 20 — nine but at 12.1 runs per over.

The bowling numbers, of course, have been askew this year, thanks in part to the Impact Player rule, which was introduced in IPL 2023 and allows teams to bring in a 12th player at any point in a match to replace a player from the XI after the toss. The absence of it in the ICC tournaments should help allrounders wrest some of the advantage back from specialists.

India has four all-rounders in Hardik, Dube, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja, but given the makeup of the squad, it is highly likely only two will feature in the XI.

India may not have the sense of T20 ideological purity of England or the peak West Indies yet, although it may have a wider array of options to break down opponents. And much as the world loves the heady euphoria generated by the barnstorming nature in which the modern T20 game is played, the overarching feeling is that India will once again live by the adage that defence is as important a part of cricket as attack.