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5 things India needs to do to win the T20 World Cup
Summary
India has a great team and will be going into the T20 World Cup as favourites. However, they can only win it if they get the game plan rightThere’s an old saying in cricket: batsmen win you games, but bowlers win you tournaments. It’s similar to what they say in football, that offence wins games but you need a solid defence to win tournaments.
Whether it’s true or not can be debated till the cows come home. But one thing is sure: bowlers will play a bigger role in the T20 World Cup than in the Indian Premier League (IPL), where teams had an extra batsman in the form of an impact sub. There’s no such cushion in international cricket. So wicket-taking bowlers will have a bigger impact on results.
The pitches in the West Indies and the US are expected to be similar to the ones in India. They are not as hard and bouncy as in Australia and South Africa, nor green and seam-friendly like some English and Kiwi pitches. They are likely to be either batting-friendly or slow turners where spin and off-pace deliveries will be effective. So, IPL performances can be an indicator of who will succeed in the T20 World Cup.
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Pace bowling deficiency
India’s trump-card is pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, who is coming off his best IPL season with 20 wickets at an economy rate of 6.5. His variety, intelligence, and execution are at their peak. He missed the last T20 World Cup in 2022 due to a back injury, but has recovered fully now.
Bumrah will, however, miss Mohammed Shami at the other end. Shami’s unerring seam position and accuracy at 140 plus kmph pace made him the highest wicket-taker in the ODI World Cup last year, even though he came into the playing 11 only after four games. He is now recovering from an Achilles’ tendon surgery.
That means Bumrah’s likely partner will be Mohammed Siraj, who looked jaded in the IPL and the England series before that. But he bowled with more fire at the back end of the IPL, after taking a break. India will be hoping Siraj hits his straps in the World Cup.
Arshdeep Singh is a possible third seamer or even an alternative new ball partner to Bumrah. He ticks the box for selectors as a left-arm pacer who swings the new ball. He took 19 wickets in 14 games in the IPL, compared to 15 in 14 games for Siraj.
But, compared to Siraj’s economy rate of 9.2, Singh went at 10 an over in the IPL. Will India risk a 20-run death over in a crucial knockout game? The selectors chose not to take a punt on the crafty slow medium pacer Sandeep Sharma, who had an economy rate of 8.2 in the IPL.
India may prefer all-rounder Hardik Pandya as the third seamer, to accommodate a third spinner, dropping either Singh or Siraj. But Pandya had a poor IPL season after recovering from another injury. His economy rate of 10.75 was worse than Singh’s 10, and he got only 11 wickets.
Comparatively, Australia’s settled pace bowling unit of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Josh Hazlewood, with Nathan Ellis as backup, looks stronger. The return of Jofra Archer to partner Mark Wood is a shot in the arm for England. Pakistan and New Zealand also have rounded pace attacks that are not over-dependent on one bowler.
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Betting on spin
With the unreliability in pace bowling, India’s best bet is spin. Skipper Rohit Sharma said he wanted four spinners and the selectors granted his wishes.
Left-arm leg-spinner Kuldeep Yadav and his right-arm counterpart, Yuzvendra Chahal, were among the top four wicket-taking spinners in IPL 2024. The two left-arm spinners, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel, had economy rates below 8. India have the strongest spin bowling unit in the World Cup.
India will mostly play day games, including the Guyana semi-final if they qualify, allowing viewers back home to watch the action from 8pm IST. The early starts and slowish tracks should favour India’s spinners.
The challenge for the team leadership will be to fit in three spinners, because of Pandya’s poor run. All-rounder Shivam Dube’s bowling has hardly been tested in the IPL. So, can India risk leaving out the third seamer to play a third spinner?
It also remains to be seen if ground conditions meet the expectation of spin-friendly venues. Otherwise, India’s leg-spinners can become targets for attack.
The usual suspects
It’s remarkable that after two years and two IPL seasons of spotting new talent, India have almost the same batting lineup as in the 2022 T20 World Cup. That would be considered a good thing, as in having a settled side, if India had been winning trophies. But India have not won a T20 World Cup in 17 years.
Again, the batting looks good on paper, but the reality may be different. In the 2022 World Cup semi-final on a batting beauty in Adelaide, India mustered only 168 and England chased it down with four overs to spare without losing a single wicket. Virat Kohli made 50 in 40 balls at a slow strike rate of 125 and India ended up with a below par total.
It was similar in the ODI World Cup last year, when Virat Kohli and K.L. Rahul went at below four runs an over in an 18-over middle order partnership. They took no risks and India ended up with 240 which Australia chased down with seven overs to spare.
India’s world class batsmen haven’t displayed the required boldness in the past, preferring to remain in their comfort zone. Only a change in attitude can raise the chances of a different outcome this time.
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Kohli's change in approach
The only change in the batting lineup from the 2022 World Cup is Yashasvi Jaiswal as an opener in place of Rahul. That came after another IPL season in which Rahul had a poor strike rate of 136.
The trouble is Jaiswal’s inconsistency after an outstanding IPL season in 2023. He has been falling to over-aggressive shots after getting set. His partner, Rohit Sharma, had a better IPL than in previous seasons, but his performance was just about average, and his team Mumbai Indians (MI) finished last in the table.
That brings us to India’s batting mainstay, Kohli. He started the 2024 IPL season in usual fashion, scoring tons of runs but at a strike rate below 150. Only after his team, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), lost seven out their first eight games and criticism mounted following a slow century in a losing cause, the India No.3 and RCB opener adopted a more risk-taking approach.
RCB went on a winning spree after Kohli’s switch, showing what a difference a change in mindset could make. His preference to score in singles and twos earlier, waiting for balls in his range to hit boundaries, was clearly not working for the team. Then he switched to power-hitting.
He brought out the slog sweep to spinners in the middle overs. And he resorted to pulling bowlers for sixes in the powerplay. He attributed it to the effect of the impact sub on scoring rates in the IPL. “One extra batter is the reason why I am playing with a 200-plus strike rate in the powerplay."
But India will want him to carry this attitude forward to the T20 World Cup instead of reverting to his old safety-first approach. Even if it leads to the occasional batting collapse on a spicy pitch, teams see an aggressive top order succeed more often than not. Two of India’s top order batsmen had their glory days in the previous decade, and not in the twenties.
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Lack of firepower
As for the middle order, the miraculous return of Rishabh Pant is good news, but the loss of form of Suryakumar Yadav is a worry.
The big question is whether India will pick Shivam Dube, who had a strike rate of 162 with an average of 36 this IPL. Or will Hardik Pandya’s reputation get him into the playing 11 despite an abysmal IPL in which he averaged 18 at a strike rate of 143? It appears to be so, if Pandya being named the vice-captain is any indication. This leaves India with a lack of firepower at the finish, because Ravindra Jadeja has a similar strike rate to Pandya’s.
It’s revealing that India’s selectors chose four players from the side that finished last in the IPL, Mumbai Indians. The selectors ignored the best Indian performers from the IPL’s top three teams: medium pacer Sandeep Sharma, mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, and top order batsman Abhishek Sharma. Chief selector Ajit Agarkar avoided controversy by staying away from out-of-the-box selections, but has he picked a winning squad?
With 20 teams divided in four groups, more than half of which are minnows, the first round of matches are largely inconsequential. Even the India-Pakistan encounter on 9 June in New York is more hype than substance. The real action begins on June 19 with the Super 8 stage of the T20 World Cup. India have time to tune their playing 11 and mindset by then.
Sumit Chakraberty is a writer based in Bengaluru.
Read the rest of our ICC T20 World Cup analysis here and here.
