The Series against Australia gave India a look at the players who are in contention for the T20 World Cup. But I think still a bunch of players left to audition. The likes of Washington Sundar, and Shivam Dube who were a part of the squad didn’t get any opportunities. And with seniors returning it is going to be interesting to see who is going to make the cut.
India’s Strengths and Takeaways
The Australian Series gave a nice platform for the young players to shine on the international stage. Ruturaj Gaikwad and Rinku Singh have to be the stand-out performers in the batting department showing their skills and handling the pressure situations. Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ishan Kishan, and Jitesh Sharma showed some spark and looked good in the limited opportunities they got.
With Shreyas Iyer scoring a crucial fifty in the final game he just might have extended his time with the T20I squad. Coming the bowling, Spinners Ravi Bishnoi and Axar Patel did exceptionally well picking 15 wickets among them, and were brilliant in stopping the run flow through the middle. They even bowled in the powerplay in almost every game and gave the team important breakthroughs. The pace department was not up to mark but the major positive has to be Mukesh Kumar showing improvement bowling at the death.
Weakness and Problems Team India would like to answer in the upcoming games
Whenever we talk about weaknesses the Indian team can relate it to the lack of all-rounders. One can easily spot a hole in the Indian Team whether it is in the batting or bowling. We all know the issues but I do not see any action towards solving them.
Team series could have been used in a different way giving opportunities for some part-timers to have a bowl and try out utility players like Sundar and Dube who can be the nearest suitable replacement to Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer who was drafted into the squad after Ipl 2021 couldn’t perform well and even the management didn’t give him many opportunities.
The bowling form of the pacers mainly Arshdeep Singh is a spot of bother for the Indian Team, being the senior bowler in this series he had to be dropped in a game can tell you the story of how badly he has performed. Prasidh Krishna who was part of the ODI WC squad looked terrible throughout the series.
X-factor
The X-factor for team India in this has to be Rinku Singh, he delivered at some crucial stages and the way he keeps his calm during the final overs is brilliant to watch. Even the performances of Jitesh Sharma would’ve impressed the Indian management.