Rohit Sharma addressing the Presser (PC: Shamik Chakrabarty)
Shamik Chakrabarty in Dubai
This was how it went – chasing 250 for victory, New Zealand were all out for 205 in 45.3 overs in their Champions Trophy match against India on Sunday. The Indian spinners shared nine wickets between them, giving away 166 runs. Varun Chakravarthy was the star performer, returning with a five-for. Only Kuldeep Yadav conceded in excess of five runs per over.
When Varun was included in the playing XI at the expense of Harshit Rana, eyebrows were raised. On the face of it, going with just two seamers – Mohammed Shami and Hardik Pandya – was fraught with risk. What would happen if one of them leaked runs? How would Rohit rotate his four spinners? From any captain’s point of view, it was a challenge. As it turned out, Rohit’s captaincy was superb, as India revelled in a tactical masterclass.
Outside noise around the Indian team sometimes can be deafening. The decision to overload the Champions Trophy squad with spinners faced criticism from several quarters. It was called a defensive team selection. The Indian team is good at blocking out the outside noise and they, along with the selectors, knew what they were doing. Jasprit Bumrah’s injury-forced absence prompted a rethink, and they decided to back their strengths – spin-bowling. The Indian think-tank knew that the tired Dubai pitches, thanks to the ILT20, would play slow and low. They read the conditions brilliantly.
India’s spin-choke offered a throwback to the methods of a certain MS Dhoni. He did it so many times, and so successfully, for India and Chennai Super Kings that he could claim a copyright on it. Gautam Gambhir and Dhoni might not be the best of friends, but white-ball cricket probably hasn’t seen a better captain than Dhoni. In certain conditions, his tactical layout remains timeless.
But even Dhoni never played with four spinners in an ODI. In fact, the New Zealand game was the first time when India fielded four tweakers in a 50-over international. It feels like this could be the team’s template, going ahead in this tournament.
Rohit admitted the temptation. “We really need to think, even if we want to play four spinners, how we can squeeze four spinners,” the skipper said at the pre-match press conference, with India gearing up to face Australia in the semi-final on Tuesday.
Rohit elaborated: “If we don’t, then we don’t. Whatever works for us in terms of the bowling options, we will try and do that. The reason I say that is because the conditions here are – we are very much aware of the conditions, and we know exactly what works and what doesn’t work. So, we will just give it a day. We will think about it, what is the right combination to go with. But it is tempting.”
How does a team drop a bowler who has been giving sleepless nights to opposition batsmen in the shorter formats of late? Varun has been a revelation, and he is fresh from a fifer. Maybe, the spinner has already written his name on the team sheet for the semi-final.
Rohit, though, preferred to keep his cards close. “Look, he (Varun) just showed what he is capable of,” the captain observed, talking about having a happy problem to live with. “Now it is up to us to think and see how we can get that combination right. It is very tempting to think about what to do, which is a good headache to have. We will just try and assess. We just want to go back and think about what the Australian batting line-up will look like and how we can try and see what kind of bowling options will work against them.”
Ever since Varun’s return to the Team India fold and his rapid rise, burying the ghosts of the 2021 T20 World Cup, there is a tendency among a section to overcomplicate things – from technical analysis to other factors in his bowling. His teammates, though, like to keep things simple. In the mixed zone after the New Zealand game, Axar Patel was telling reporters how it has been “very difficult” to read Varun off his hand. Rohit, too, sang from the same hymn sheet.
“Speaking about Varun, I think he has become more accurate now from the last time he played for India, which was way back in 2021,” he said. “And I mean, there was a little bit of inexperience in him as well, because he hadn’t played a lot of cricket. But right now, in the last two or three years, he has played a lot of cricket, whether it’s domestic cricket, IPL, and now for India in T20s, and now the ODIs as well.”
The India captain shot down the debate over his team having a ‘home advantage’ in Dubai, saying: “No, look, the three matches we played, the nature of the surface was the same. But in all three games, the pitch has behaved differently. In the semi-final, we don’t know which pitch is going to be played.”
Further affirmation came in its wake: “This is not our home, this is Dubai. So, we don’t play so many matches here. This is new for us too.”
Australia have time and again proven to be India’s nemesis in the ICC events. The Aussies of this Champions Trophy vintage are depleted, bowling-wise. But the serial winners know how to eke out victories in big games. That said, given the conditions and form, this is India’s tournament to lose.