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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  A final trial before the World Cup
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A final trial before the World Cup

The hastily arranged tournament against Sri Lanka will be the last chance to get into the Cup squad

Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli. Photo: Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty ImagesPremium
Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli. Photo: Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images

NEW DELHI :

On 15 February, India will take on Pakistan at Adelaide, Australia, in their 2015 World Cup opener. Those with a penchant for hyperbole will call it war, but there is no doubt that the spotlight will be firmly on India, the defending One Day International (ODI) champions. Just how far can India go this time around?

That’s the question that will be top of the mind for fans, selectors, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and the players themselves as they head into a five-match home ODI series against Sri Lanka, starting on Sunday.

There is a school of thought that the BCCI was too quick to invite the Sri Lankan team to fill the void left by the prematurely departing West Indies team, and that the replacement of three Tests by five ODIs is yet another nail in the proverbial coffin of the longer format. In the current scheme of things, however, this criticism needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

For this forthcoming, hastily scheduled contest against the visiting Sri Lankan side will give selectors a last chance to fine-tune their World Cup selection.

There is one more tournament that India will play before the World Cup, a tour of Australia which will end with a tri-series involving England in January. This will be a far more real test of India’s readiness for the World Cup, but by then there will be no selection issues to ponder—the World Cup squad would have been announced long before the tour. It will serve, however, as the best possible opportunity for the chosen 15 players to gel together as a unit.

If India’s last eight ODIs are considered, “fine-tuning" is indeed the phrase applicable to their main strength—batting. Rohit Sharma’s injury in England in August meant that Ajinkya Rahane got a chance to open the batting; he took to his new role much like the clichéd fish to water. Rahane has been so impressive in this new-found freedom at the top of the order this year (378 runs in 10 matches at an average of 37.80, with a strike rate of 85.32) that his struggles at No.4 (215 runs in nine matches at an average of 23.88) are all but forgotten.

Ambati Rayadu. Photographs by Gareth Copley/Getty Images
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Ambati Rayadu. Photographs by Gareth Copley/Getty Images

By some chance, Rohit was unavailable for the curtailed West Indies series and is also unavailable for the first three matches against Sri Lanka. As and when he returns, irrespective of the position at which he bats, he is expected to automatically replace Ambati Rayudu in the eleven. Rayudu has been a regular feature in the ODI squad since Yuvraj Singh was dropped in December. But in 15 matches played in 2014, batting at No.4 on most occasions, he has scored an ordinary 334 runs at an average of 37.11. The fact that he continues to be in the team indicates that the selectors have already made up their minds about Rayudu being the back-up middle-order batsman at the World Cup. That is, unless the likes of Singh, Manoj Tiwary and Manish Pandey can produce something spectacular in the forthcoming matches against Sri Lanka.

Whatever little uncertainty there is about the batting order will cease to matter if Virat Kohli can find his footing again. With a half-century and century back to back against the West Indies, he has at least started scoring again. There is no doubt though that he needs to regain his vigour before heading to Australia because India’s fortunes Down Under will hinge on his success.

“Every batsman suffers a lean patch in his career and Virat went through one as well. Now he is back among the runs. He is very aware of the expectations from him in Australia—both for the tour and the World Cup—and has been preparing keeping the coming months in mind," says Kohli’s childhood coach, Rajkumar Sharma.

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Ishant Sharma.

“Ishant has learnt from his mistakes and needs to play for India in ODIs too because he is a senior bowler and they will need his experience in Australia. He didn’t feature at Dharamsala (Himachal Pradesh) against the West Indies. Unless they play him, the team management won’t learn how much he has improved," says his childhood coach, Sharvan Kumar.

The wild-haired bowler might just get his wish, for Mohammed Shami has been ruled out for the entire Sri Lankan series owing to injury. He has been the Indian spearhead for the past one year, Dhoni’s go-to man during the death overs and, of late, has shown significant improvement on that front. “Shami was terrific in the death overs in the ODIs in England," former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar had said after India’s 3-1 series win there. “But he needs to do this consistently. Bowling in the death overs is a vital component of ODI cricket and India need to rear their fast bowlers in this regard. They need someone experienced to guide them. Also, the Indian team needs to manage their bowlers’ workload. Tired bowlers will not help you during the World Cup."

That last point is vital because the bowling attack in Australia will be pace-heavy, so the selectors will need to earmark which bowlers they will need during the Test and tri-series, and those they will need for the World Cup.

Mohammed Shami.
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Mohammed Shami.

This is the singular reason young spinners Karn Sharma and Kuldeep Yadav haven’t got a game yet. While Akshar Patel managed to make his ODI debut ahead of these two, it is difficult to see him getting a call-up ahead of Amit Mishra as the third spinner in the World Cup squad, thanks to the presence of a more-favoured left-arm spinner in Ravindra Jadeja.

With R. Ashwin’s return, the spin combination bears a settled look. But India’s bowling has long been its weak link, and this was proved once again by losses in South Africa and New Zealand during the 2013-14 season, when conditions more closely resembled the ones prevailing in Australia.

The five matches against Sri Lanka are a luxury then for this creaky five-bowler attack and might just be helpful in affording them some confidence.

Chetan Narula is the author of Skipper: A Definitive Account Of India’s Greatest Captains.

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Published: 29 Oct 2014, 09:31 PM IST
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