WC T20: Australia Thrashes India By 49 Runs

From the iSport Cricket Paddock: iSporter Uttaresh Venkateshwaran pens his views on India's recent loss against Australia.

IN07_NKV6_114593g

Although the weather reports in Barbados suggested that there would be lesser chances of rain, it was a cloudy start for team India as they chose to bowl first on the hard and bouncy track at Barbados. A good first over maiden by Harbhajan Singh showed the kind of bounce the pitch had to offer plus the moisture in it suggested that it would be good for the seamers first up. But what came in after that was some strong hitting by the Aussie openers Shane Watson and David Warner. Some huge sixes out of the park by them showed a lot about their intentions of thumping down the Indian bowlers right from the start. They were successful enough in doing that as well as the Australians piled up a huge total of 184 in their quota of 20 overs thanks to some magnificent batting by their top order batsmen Watson, Warner and Hussey.

Some changes by the Indians did not seem to work for them as they decided to go on with 8 batsmen in their side and just 2 seamers. Considering the pitch and the weather conditions I honestly feel that we fell short of one bowler on this occasion. The intention was clear from Dhoni that is to chase down the target easily with maximum batsmen in the playing XI which went terribly wrong on this occasion. India genuinely lacked a seam bowler which was on the contrary compared to the Aussie bowling line up. The bowlers bowled in the right areas and used their most destructive weapons against the Indian batsmen i.e. the short balls. Most Indian batsmen including the likes of Gambhir, Vijay, Raina, and Harbhajan fell prey to those deliveries and ended up giving way their wickets while trying to pull the ball. Indians have always had this weakness of not being able to play the short ball very well which seemed to be visible in yesterday’s match as well.

A good combination of length bowling as well as some short deliveries and not to forget the block hole deliveries which bungled out the Indians for a mere score of 135 against the mammoth target set by the Aussies of 185. Another important thing to be noted throughout the batting of the Indians which was rightly mentioned by the Dhoni in the post-match conference was that all of them seemed in a hurry to play the big strokes before getting set on the field. The batsmen just couldn’t face the deliveries which were bowled to them at a speed of 150 kmph on an average. Genuine pace and bounce bowling by Aussie bowlers as well as poor shot selection by the batsmen led to their downfall.

Moving on to the bowling department of the Indians, as I mentioned earlier we genuinely lacked a seam bowler. Considering the pitch conditions Dhoni should have gone with another bowler in place of such a deep batting line up. The Indian bowlers had to face the music of some terrific display of aggressive batting first up by Shane Watson and David Warner. Another thing to be noted was that use of short balls was lesser as compared to the Aussie bowlers which led the Australian batsmen to break the shackles after the first over itself and hit them hard and out of the park.

It cannot be said that the Indians lost it only because of their mistakes. It was a terrific display of ‘Team Effort’ by the Australians who did a fantastic job in all departments of the game; be it batting, bowling or fielding, they were spot on and completely outclassed Indians on this occasion. Bowlers in the Aussie line up did a brilliant job. Dirk Nannes and Shaun Tait taking 3 wickets each and doing their job of restricting the Indians to 135. Australia won the match by 49 runs.

What this loss does to India is that they need to work on their opening combination as well as in their bowling areas and to analyse as to where did they go wrong. In the next match they face the West Indies which is also coming out of a loss against Sri Lanka. It would be an interesting encounter to watch as pressure would be on both sides to win.