Team India raced into the Super 8 of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup as they topped Group A with three wins and a draw in their four assignments in the USA. The men in blue got the better of Ireland, Pakistan and the USA before a washed-out game against Canada secured the top spot.
Former New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming, who is clearly impressed by the Indian charge opined that Rohit Sharma and Co. do not have any apparent vulnerability heading into the second phase of the tournament.
“Not really and neither should there be (any vulnerability) because there’s so much talent really to pick from. The vulnerability would have come from New York where the ball is going to seam around and from the pace bowling point of view you have a little bit of uneven bounce but they dealt with that quite well,” he began.
He lauded India for navigating the unknown challenges posed by the New York pitches and backed them to have all bases covered heading into the Super 8s in West Indies.
“The last game was I thought very mature the way they chased down the title, so they got through that and I would expect if conditions are playing in some of the key venues like we expect them to do then they should have all bases covered and I thought the danger period was really New York where we had no idea how it was going to play and then dealing with the challenges that were there they did that quite well. So I would expect this side and the talent they’ve got to get a little bit stronger,” Fleming added.
India have opted to open their innings with skipper Rohit taking strike alongside star batter Virat Kohli, and thus benching the talented Yashasvi Jaiswal. Fleming was of the opinion that this strategy was opted for keeping the advanced phase of the tournament in mind.
“They had to make some hard calls while Jaiswal was a great player, that’s leaving out top quality players is always difficult and having a plan and you stay to it when you’ve got great players sitting on the sidelines is always very difficult because it’s tempting to keep looking where the grass is greener, but I like the job they’ve done, they’ve got through,” the southpaw stated.
He added that India have looked to work backwards and that has stood them in quite some steady stead thus far and will hold up as they move ahead in the ICC spectacle.
“This is a team that in some ways is picked for the finals in my view, it’s a team that has spinners that can dominate, it has players that can dominate spin and we’ve seen spin in the West Indies play quite a big part, not so much in New York,” the Kiwi said.
“So, I think they’ve got job done and they’ve got quite smartly a view of mind, this is how we want to play the key games now going into hopefully the semi-finals and final. If you work backwards and say this is the team, I want for the final because these are the conditions I think and then work backwards, then this looks some way what Rahul and the boys have done,” the 51-year-old said.
“They’ve picked a team that they think may be playing a turning track, this will give us our best chance at the top and has good balance and we’ve seen that sort of in stops and starts and it’s just been because of conditions but I think they’re in good shape,” he continued.
Fleming also touched upon the strategy of playing two left arm spinners, who could also bat, in Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel and drew parallels with how the Chennai Super Kings operate.
“Sometimes it’s hard to manage two players to do the same thing, Mitchell Santner and Ravindra Jadeja sort of do the same role for us in CSK and we sometimes find it hard around the selection to get eight overs of exactly the same skill set,” Fleming stated.
“They are different bowlers, they bowl differently but both of them when conditions are right can be a real handful, so with their all-round skills and their batting skills it allows India to try that and Jadeja in the right conditions can be incredibly dangerous which we’ve seen over many years, as Axar can provide a different type of attack where conditions are slightly different like in New York,” he asserted.
“So, there are subtleties around them both but again, and I hate that notion of left-handers can’t bowl to left-hand batters so we can dispel that myth and both of those players can hopefully play along,” the former New Zealand opener added.
He also spoke about how the Indian spin attack could work its wonders with the tournament moving to the Caribbean for the later stages. India have picked up four spinners in the squad and the wily spinners could weave the men in blue to victory according to Fleming.
“Yeah, I think so but they’ve still got that opportunity now to do both which is good and horses for courses, you can’t be so set in one way of playing that you miss the opportunities to take advantage of conditions,” Fleming said.
“I would think maybe Kuldeep would come in to provide that extra bit of wicket-taking flair if the wickets do provide the turn as they get a little bit more used and you get closer to the end of the tournament,” he concluded.
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