CHENNAI: The bandwagon is in town and India are all set to roll. Rohit Sharma’s team, after a ‘warm-up’ games tour from Guwahati to Thiruvananthapuram – they did not get to play a single ball at either venue due to rain – finally had an extensive nets session under a blazing Chennai sun at the MA Chidambaram Stadium practice facilities.
The first thing that stood out was Jasprit Bumrah‘s batting stint. The first to get into the nets ahead of the game against Australia on Sunday, the tearaway pacer got a 40-minute batting session in all the three nets – pace, spin and throwdowns. If there’s one area that has left the team management slightly worried going into the World Cup, it is the lack of batting contributions from Nos. 8-11.
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Bumrah has some batting talent – he exhibited that in the Lord’s Test a couple of years ago – and it’s quite evident that the team management wants to make use of it. An ODI batting average of 7.30 is nothing to be proud of, but Rohit Sharma believes that Bumrah can probably shape up to be a handy No. 9.
The spot above Bumrah is set to be reserved for Ravichandran Ashwin, who is in the middle of a dream ODI comeback. While Ashwin is a handy batter with an ODI average of 16.44, he isn’t known for his big-hitting. One could see that there was an effort to give Ashwin too some quality batting time, which may prove crucial in the opener.
While Ashwin’s batting will be important, it’s his primary skill – off-spin – that has to come to the fore in the middle overs. The 37-year-old, who made his World Cup debut here against West Indies 12 years ago, is still slightly short of white-ball game-time and the team management wants him in the best shape against the Aussie left-handers.
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The veteran was one of the first to get into the net as a batter and was in action virtually through the entire three-hour session, bowling a long spell. In fact, Ashwin was the last bowler to leave the nets as KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya finished their batting stints.
While Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja seem to be certainties in the playing XI for the first game, the only point of contention is whether it would be Mohammed Shami as the third pacer or Kuldeep Yadav as the wrist-spinning option.
But given the nature of the Chepauk pitch, Kuldeep is likely to get the nod. Bowling slightly faster through the air, he was troubling the batters and those in the know felt that a wrist-spinner on the Chepauk track should be handy. “Kuldeep is in fine form and with two experienced finger spinners in the XI, he will be able to express himself better. There’s no reason to drop Kuldeep from the XI,” said a source.
