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‘Virat Kohli practiced well before the rest of his teammates had their respective net sessions on Saturday.’ That was the major talking point before the marquee India-Pakistan Champions Trophy clash. Perhaps he wanted to practice without all the media glare around him. Whatever it was, Kohli reportedly went about his job of trying to iron out his flaws against spin. He also faced the net bowler, Waseem Akram, with an eye on countering the left-arm angle of Shaheen Afridi. Incidentally, Waseem happens to be a left-arm pacer.
That was a short summary of Kohli. But what about his teammates? Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma, the skipper, and KL Rahul walked out to bat by about 12.15 PM local time. Gill, in the first net, was timing the ball to near-perfection. A couple of nonchalant flicks went sailing over what would have been a mid-on fielder in an imaginary sense. The only bit of worry for Gill and his fans would be he was once or twice beaten on the inside edge while facing the left-arm angle. And Pakistan do have one in their ranks. Otherwise, with mostly a back-and-across trigger, he looked in fine touch.
Rohit, meanwhile, was mostly intent on defence. Initially, Washington Sundar bowled a few overs at him before the net bowlers took over. The focus, while facing the side-arm throwers, was to play with a short bat-lift and negate the threat of the yorker. Also, to negotiate the deliveries that come in with the angle and straighten or nip away after pitching, on an off-stump line. This particular delivery has been a bugbear of Rohit for around 18 months now.
It is true that he was beaten a couple of times on the outside edge, but on enough occasions, his back foot/the sinewy part of the big toe seemed to be getting activated quite early. Subsequently, for the back foot to press and release and the front foot to get to the pitch of the ball.
The surprise package was Rahul. The middle-order-bat, who is known for taking his time to gauge the conditions, was in an adventurous mood. The wicketkeeper-bat attempted the reverse sweep to a spinner, alongside the reverse lap while facing a yorker-length delivery. Hardik Pandya, the all-rounder, was focused on upskilling his game against hard length.
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Axar Patel, his teammate, seemed a touch concerned with how his weight wasn’t going towards the ball while attempting drives. And then there was Shreyas Iyer. The Mumbai batter had a single-minded focus on playing out fuller length deliveries as he faced throwdowns. The context to it is that the middle-order bat has had some issues versus the fuller delivery on a slightly wider angle. Although a change in trigger helped him carve out a path in the recent England series.
Among the bowlers, Arshdeep had a short spell. The interesting part was Varun Chakaravarthy bowled a longer spell than Kuldeep Yadav. So, is the Indian think-tank considering selecting Varun ahead of Kuldeep, who in turn has looked a bit off-colour since his comeback from an injury?
How about the weather and pitch conditions? The weather over the last few days has been a curious mix of radiant sunshine until around 5 PM and then for it to cool down in the night; something that is preventing the dew from playing a major role. There is a hypothesis floated by scientists that colder air could help the ball swing a little more. Although the cricketers don’t necessarily agree. Incidentally, we observed relatively more movement upfront for Bangladeshi pacers in the second innings of their Champions Trophy game versus India.
“For example, air density at 15°C is higher by around 4 per cent in comparison to air density at 25°C, which implies that a ball that would have swung around 2 feet at 25°C will swing an additional 1 inch at 15°C (Mehta, 19th Australasian Fluid Mechanics Conference, 2014).”
As far as the pitch is concerned, it is set to stay on the slower side and could turn out to be another of those two-paced decks. One could also notice a hint of roughness.
So, what could be the result of the game? India start the match as favourites. However, this is one ground where Pakistan would find sizeable support and they might even outnumber the Indian fans. Over the two days that Pakistan trained, there were lots of chants of “Babar, Babar, Shaheen, Shaheen, Haris, Haris, Rizwan, Rizwan, Kaptaana, Naseem, Naseem” and so on. The crowd support could just motivate the Pakistani players to turn their fortunes around after slipping to a defeat versus New Zealand.
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