The five-match ODI series against Australia will give the Indian team management one final opportunity to identify the squad that will travel to England in May for the ODI World Cup. The first of the five ODIs will be played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday, 2 March.
As things stand, at least 12 players pick themselves in the World Cup squad. Over the next fortnight, captain Virat Kohli, coach Ravi Shastri and the selection committee will look to find answers to the remaining spots that need filling.
India’s World Cup Mix
- Certainties: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni, Hardik Pandya, Kedar Jadhav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav.
- Auditioning for WC squad in this series: KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Vijay Shankar, Ravindra Jadeja, Siddarth Kaul.
- Also in the fray: Dinesh Karthik.
- Outside contenders: Manish Pandey, Ajinkya Rahane, Khaleel Ahmed, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.
Beware of the Cost of ‘Experimentation’
The Indian cricket team should be aware that at the cost of planning for the future, they shouldn’t be jeopardising the present.
Winning the World Cup is no doubt the ultimate goal; but one has to remember that it is the same goal for nine other teams, and therefore there is no guarantee that all the planning will lead to World Cup glory.
Cricket is a momentum game; once a team starts winning, the entire squad feels confident and there is belief within the group.
Starting with the Asia Cup win last year, India were on a roll – registering success against the Windies at home, against Australia on the road and beating New Zealand in the ODI series.
However, most recently, India have now lost two series on the bounce – the T20I series in New Zealand and the T20I series against Australia at home.
One hopes the Indian team will look to first secure the ODI series against Australia before they experiment with different combinations in planning for the World Cup.
Australia’s ODI Rut Pre-Dates Tampergate
Australia have problems of their own.
The ‘Sandpaper-gate’ may have caused a lot of turmoil and resulted in sanctions on two of Australia’s gun players – namely Steve Smith and David Warner – but even before that, the Australian cricket team was a shadow of the team that dominated the cricket landscape for decades.
In the back-end of 2016, the Australians were whitewashed in a five-match ODI series in South Africa. In 2017, Australia had a 5-8 win-loss record. In 2018 – before sandpaper-gate broke out – they had lost an ODI series at home to England 4-1. Things have only gone south ever since.
Barring Aaron Finch (who is battling poor form currently) and Glenn Maxwell, there are few batsmen in the Australian squad who will give opponents’ bowlers sleepless nights.
One glance at the Australian squad that has arrived in India, and it would be difficult to identify more than five players as being certainties in the XI; such is the poor state Australian cricket finds itself in.
On paper, India should beat this Australian team in every single contest in this series. However, that is not always how things pan out.
One hopes the Indian team has learnt lessons from the T20I series; if you make things easy for the opponent, you are making things difficult for yourself!
Players to Watch out For
Rohit Sharma
- Career Batting Average: 47.61
- Batting Average vs Australia: 65.85
Marcus Stoinis
- Career Batting Average: 42.47
- Batting Average vs India: 59.75
Yuzvendra Chahal
- Career Bowling Average: 23.83
- Bowling Average vs Australia: 17.83
Jhye Richardson
- Career Bowling Average: 29.46
- Bowling Average vs India: 18.67
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