India vs West Indies: Krunal Pandya's all-round brilliance makes him strong contender for regular spot ahead of World T20

When Krunal Pandya took strike in the last over of the Indian innings during the second T20I against West Indies at Lauderhill, India had moved headfirst into their familiar failing of death-over trouble. No boundary had been hit for 28 balls, and only 21 runs had come from overs 16 to 19. Two sixes from the first two deliveries he faced — both yorkers gone wrong from Keemo Paul — and India’s finish had a fillip; 20 runs from the 20th over ensured India ended on 167/5. [caption id=“attachment_7110791” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Krunal Pandya starred in India’s win in the second T20I. AFP[/caption] When Krunal Pandya came on to bowl during the run-chase, West Indies were clawing their way back into the game. After a quiet start, overs 6 to 9 had fetched 41 runs, and Rovman Powell was tonking about at a strike rate in excess of 200. Only five came off his first over, and even a six off the last ball of his second only took his figures to 0/14 in 2; in his third, he effectively ended the contest in the space of four balls by removing both Powell and Nicholas Pooran as the Windies fell impossibly behind an already improbable target. Pandya’s tally for the day read 20 not out off 13 balls and 2/23 from 3.3 overs — nothing super-heroic, but the difference between a potentially close affair and a convincing Indian win, and good enough to pip Rohit Sharma’s quick-fire 67 to the award-winning performance of the match. Haven’t we seen this before, in his IPL years with Mumbai Indians, responsible for catapulting him into the Indian T20I setup towards the end of 2018? For those forgetting, Pandya senior holds a healthy strike rate of 146.06 after four IPL campaigns, and an even-more impressive economy rate of 7.16 despite playing half his games at the spin-graveyard that is the Wankhede. He featured in all 16 matches in the run to the title this year, and was Player-of-the-Final in the summit clash in 2017. In his limited foray into international cricket, Krunal has brought all the bits of his enterprising game to the party and started to piece together a vital part of India’s T20I puzzle. A lack of all-rounders around Indian cricket, and an even greater lack of faith in the few around, has been a visible feature in how India have lined up in T20 internationals, but if they are to shift to a better-balanced and more stocked side in terms of batting and bowling options, it is the senior Pandya’s introduction into the team that looks like it may do the trick for Kohli and Co. While the sample space, at 13 T20Is so far, is small, the signs are well worth savouring — Krunal has batted seven times, facing a total of just 77 balls, and been handy enough with a strike rate of 132.46; with the ball, he has been both stifling and striking, evidenced through 14 wickets and under-8 economy For comparison, Hardik Pandya concedes 8.31 in T20Is and Vijay Shankar 9.09; Ravindra Jadeja goes at a significantly better 7.14 per over, but his wickets column reads a much drier 32 from 42 games. More crucially, from a team balance perspective, can any of his all-round peers realistically match Krunal’s two-fold ability? Hardik may be much more dangerous with the bat, but can he be trusted with four overs in every T20I? For all of Jadeja’s recent batting highs, can he really fit in the top 6/7? That’s where Krunal, all of nine months since his India debut, appears set to be a vital cog in the wheel as it turns in the direction of next year’s T20 World Cup. Need four tight overs, quickly delivered in the middle overs before one knows it? Krunal can do it. Want a bowler to stifle big-hitting batsmen, while retaining the potential to knock their poles down as well? Krunal will do it, and if AB de Villiers can testify to it, there is little better profiling required. Want a canny presence in the field, not shy of diving around, with a good throwing arm to boot? Krunal’s got you. Need a versatile bat, capable in equal measure of clearing the rope at the death and hanging around in case of a pile of wickets? Krunal can dig in. One possibly obvious doubt that could creep up, if looking solely at the 2020 T20 World Cup, is over how handy the spin could be in the early-Australian season of October-November; but then you jog back to the three games he played Down Under at the start of India’s tour last summer. It began disastrously — Krunal was plundered for 55 in four wicketless overs in the first T20I at Brisbane. But he recovered to register a more routine 4-0-26-1 at Melbourne, and then turned in a Man-of-the-Match winning 4-0-36-4 in the series-decider at Sydney, with India needing to win to level the contest. Pluck has always been a stand-out feature in the 28-year-old’s profile, right from his days learning the ropes at Kiran More’s academy in Baroda to the rise up the ladder through the MI years. And there is, yet, one little factor that we haven’t got to see a lot of in his time donning the India blue. The Pandya brothers revel in each other’s company on the field; the sibling rivalry — all healthy, of course — has reaped its rewards for Mumbai Indians in the form of two IPL titles in the last three years. But so far, through a combination of injuries, suspension and now rest, Krunal has only had Hardik along with him in the park for three of his 13 appearances. That is set to change when India play their next set of T20Is after the ongoing series in the USA, with South Africa visiting in September. The countdown to the T20 World Cup will be nearing the one-year mark at that point, and the Pandyas can be expected to take the sixth and seventh positions in the Indian lineup — in whatever order. If they gel the way they have for the Mumbai Indians, India’s T20I stock — usually not the highest-soaring of stocks in Indian cricket — is set to rise in time for a crack at the title come Australia 2020.