A torrent of relief swept the arena when Hardik Pandya devoured the catch off Aamir Kaleem, pirouetting like a dancer, on the edge of the fence. Kaleem, the 43-year-old from Sind was the orchestrator of Oman’s fairy-tale dream. The mission impossible man who had gritted to 64 off 46 balls. Oman’s brave pursuit of the impossible chase of 189 collapsed, inevitable as it had always seemed. But they offered India a scare, coming 21 runs close to their total, and exposed their batting and bowling depth, without the talismen.
It’s the beguiling paradox of the game. The game that was perceivably a stroll tormented India the most. It offered burning truths. Without Suryakumar Yadav batting in the top, India look fallible. Without Bumrah, India loses their shine and sheen, the fear and dread. His replacement Arshdeep strove to swing the ball, but found neither bend in the air or deviation off the surface. Hardik, too, didn’t look the force he was when he bowled with Bumrah. Harshit Rana, too, is raw. Collectivism dissipated.
As was their batting. In a low-stakes match where the only motive was offering batting practice to those that had not batted in the tournament so far, Yadav slotting himself at 11 was not a shock. The opening game against UAE lasted only 4.3 overs; the one against Pakistan saw 15.3 overs. Only four batsmen were needed to bat, and before the frenetic Super Four began, India wanted the rest to accumulate some real-game batting time in the middle, lest they turn rusty in important games.
A spirited performance from Oman but India see it through 👏
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As the match fleshed out, the relevance grew, because on a comparatively sluggish surface, against a modest bowling firmament, some of them struggled for timing and required the explosiveness of Abhishek Sharma at the start, belligerence of Axar Patel in the middle over and Tilak Varma in the end to furnish the thrust for quick runs. Erase the trio’s tally — 93 off 46 balls — the innings feels like a crawl (95 off 74), given India’s batting muscle.
Samson struggles
Sanju embodied India’s struggles the severest. He was rusty, unlike the freewheeler he was in the Kerala Super League. Perhaps he was too over eager that his hands were stiff and hard, he tried to bludgeon the ball rather than coax it through the gaps. Sanju, the handsome touch-player of the past, was rebelling with the modernist power-hitting avatar. His knock fluctuated between the sublime and the banal. A whipped flick of left-arm seamer Faisal Shah, who was bending the ball into the right-hander and had nipped out Shubman Gill, blended both timing and power. Half a shuffle across and he merely whirled his hands. The ball soared into the sun-burnt grass-banks.
The sumptuous stroke did not unshackle him. He wafted the thin air numerous times. He mistimed twice as many, his 56 off 45 strewn with edges of all hues. One third of the balls did not fetch him a run. He seemed discontent in the middle, often shaking his head and admonishing himself. He rarely smiled. The stroke he perished embodied his labours, as he tried to manufacture a scoop and found himself in a tangled mess. He premeditated, did not anticipate a slower ball and could not control his stroke. In a game of higher stakes, in virtual knockouts, against more competent games, his most laborious 50-plus effort would not have escaped scrutiny.
The Sanju Show was in full swing tonight! 👌
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Like Sanju, Shivam Dube too looked out-of-touch. He struggled for placement and failed to kick on after eating up eight balls for merely five runs. His bat turned in his hand as he attempted to blister left-arm spinner Aamir Kaleem down the ground. Dube is usually brutal on such bowlers, but here he failed to find his gears. He walked in at six, arguably his most suitable batting position and with abundant overs to reclaim his biffing mood. In another instance of India’s experimenting spree, Hardik Pandya strode in at No.4. He left cursing his stars after being run out carelessly, backing up too far to a Sanju straight drive and finding a feather of the bowler’s (Jitesh Ramanandi) outstretched index finger into the stumps.
Bizarrely, even his departure did not force Suryakumar to bristle out himself. Instead, when Samson floundered, Rana strode in, then Arshdeep and Kuldeep. It seemed a farce, a sign of taking their rivals frivolously rather than tucking in some more runs before Sunday’s fixture against Pakistan, keeping their unstoppable machine rolling as smoothly as before. India could dismiss it as a one-off, the game merely a glorified exhibition game. Probably, they would glean the positive that some of them, such as Sanju, spent time in the middle and would reclaim his batting zen.
But the batting performance against Oman would not leave them fully content. Great teams roll over every opponent they face, they don’t relax even when they are combatting lower-ranked teams. Not every day would Abhishek Sharma bail them out. Had the wicket-keeper Vinayak Shukla clung onto his leg-side edge, when he was on 19, the picture would have been grimmer for India. Abhishek would seldom leave such blessings unpunished.
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Better-skilled bowling units too would struggle to contain Abhishek. He has negligible flaws in the format. He is brutal on short balls; ruthless on full balls. He sashays down the tracks and disrupts the bowlers’ length. Even if he sometimes doesn’t reach the pitch of the ball, he goes through with his shot. For a not-so-tall batsman, he has incredibly long hands. When Shubman Gill perished, to a nip-backer from Faisal Shah, and Sanju struggled for timing, he revved up the momentum with a barrage of boundaries. Strokes unfurled in fun, strokes played to the gallery, strokes that captured his riveting form and joie de vivre.
But India cannot over-depend on him, or Suryakumar, or Tilak. Or Bumrah and Chakaravarthy. At some juncture of exigency in the tournament, the resourcefulness of the rest too would be tested against stronger opponents. Friday’s performance did not produce a glowing account of them.
