India vs West Indies: Suryakumar Yadav and Venkatesh Iyer headline Men in Blue's biggest gains in 3-0 rout of Windies

As India rounded up another 3-0 sweep over the West Indies, a statistic stood out. This was their ninth consecutive win in T20s since November 2021. In the longer scheme of things, this is a hollow statistic. If you cannot get out of the group stage at the T20 World Cup after all your achievements in bilateral cricket, it doesn’t really matter.

For a change though, India’s team management is clearly thinking of solving that problem. There is another T20 World Cup looming closer every day and these three T20s against West Indies – unlike the six preceding – were all about preparation in that one direction.

Suryakumar Yadav and Venkatesh Iyer – Take a bow!

 When was the last time India had two names consistently bat at the same position in the late middle order? Even as experimentation kicked in, there was one common denominator. Suryakumar Yadav and Venkatesh Iyer stayed put in their roles and accomplished a job for the team in every game.

SKY is excelling at every outing, and this is an understatement of what he provides to this Indian line-up. When you are batting after the likes of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, and Rishabh Pant as well, there is certain volatility expected of you. Mostly, you will arrive at the crease with only the latter third of the innings remaining. You need to sum up the situation and go hammer-tongs on the bowling. On rare occasions, you might arrive a tad early, for there has been a collapse. Then, you need to go about a small rebuild, before unleashing the big strokes.

The hallmark of such a batting role is the requisite balance between these two aforementioned traits. You need that mental calculation going on at all times, summarising the situation in your head and putting it to action. This is what MS Dhoni did best and why he is rated as the greatest finisher of all time. There is no parallel yet, but it has been a long time since India found a batsman who belonged in that mental space at least.

SKY is that batsman. Consider his knock on Sunday evening. The scorecard reads 65 off only 31 balls, and anyone who didn’t watch the game would simply assume he went slam-bang. Instead, his knock was so much more. SKY had come to bat in the 10th over, a little earlier than anticipated, and by the end of the 15th over, he had only scored 24 off 17 deliveries. The onslaught was yet to come.

Even so, it didn’t arrive all at once. This is where Venkatesh Iyer enters the fray. As SKY took backstage, his partner went about tanking the ball to all parts of the ground. While the duo smacked 86 off the last 30 balls, Iyer merits individual praise herein. He has been given a pre-defined role at number six. It is in stark contrast to what he does for Kolkata Knight Riders, and yet Iyer has found that consistency in his gameplay. It takes a special skill to shut out a different role you might be performing for an alternative side, and then to perform a totally different role for another team.

Indian cricket has struggled in T20Is precisely because most of their batsmen are not able to find that crucial balance between their roles on the international stage and the ones they perform in the IPL. Both SKY and Iyer, together as a pair but also as individual batsmen, have shown merit in breaking against that mould.

SKY’s gully-cricket chutzpah has met with Iyer’s opportunistic onslaught, and they are able to do so without stepping onto each other’s toes. Watch Sunday’s highlights’ reel back – you won’t find SKY playing a major role until he went berserk in the final over. Until then, it was all Iyer, who had raced to 34 off 18. This balance that SKY has managed to find in his batting gears at number five, aided with Iyer’s attacking game, is the single biggest gain in India’s preparation for the 2022 T20 World Cup.

Top-order shuffling – Finally some experimentation!

 Of course, SKY and Iyer wouldn’t have got their chance if the team management hadn’t decided to shuffle the top-order. This was a stark departure from the previous regime, and Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid have taken proper steps to try out a different methodology. Unlike the Virat Kohli era, wherein one or two different players would be rotated but the core of the side would stay the same.

It was experimentation only in the garb of experimentation. For example, in KL Rahul’s absence, Rohit and Kohli would probably have opened the innings in at least one or two games. Often, negligible changes to the batting line-up severely impacted the players’ ability to perform in different situations. It happened on numerous occasions, on record. Alternatively, this new management has torn up that guidebook and are setting about in a new, welcome direction.

Herein, Ishan Kishan gets to open for three successive games. Clearly, he is being fostered to perform a dual role as third-choice opener and reserve keeper. Ruturaj Gaikwad is another option, but with Rahul back at some point, he will find it tough to break in.

Rohit dropped himself down the order on Sunday to allow Shreyas Iyer a longer hit in the middle. It is staggering that Iyer, who now leads an IPL franchise, cannot get into the first-choice T20 team. But there are too many similarities with him, Kohli and Rohit in the same eleven, and so he must wait his chance. Even so, he is being prepped for eventualities in a similar situation.

An interesting facet herein is how India intends to utilise Rishabh Pant. In two games, he was asked to bat at four and five respectively, and he smacked a fifty in the latter scenario. Going forward, it is very possible that the think tank will use him and SKY as fluid alternatives in the middle order, keeping in mind the different match-ups that could occur in the second half of the innings. As Dravid said post the series’ win, a T20 game can change in the matter of five or six deliveries. The Indian team would want the optimal batsman to make that impact as seen in the last two T20s with Pant and SKY smacking attacking fifties.

Shaping the bowling attack to Australian conditions

Winning this series in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah is a key takeaway. He walks into any T20 side, and usually the entire attack is build around him, irrespective of conditions.

That last word – conditions – is key herein. Sweeping the West Indies 3-0 at home with an attack used to bowling in these IPL-like conditions is very different from gunning for the T20 World Cup in Australia. The Indian think tank needs to consider this key facet when measuring this bowling attack’s performances.

This is because you are shaping a bowling attack that needs to compete on the grounds in Australia, with flatter, bouncier decks and big boundaries. Here, they could comfortably play Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravi Bishnoi together, but in Australia, two wrist spinners in the same eleven could be a big no-no. This dynamic will also change shortly when Ravindra Jadeja arrives for the Sri Lanka series, for he is another cricketer who walks into the playing eleven.

Jadeja’s inclusion could impact both the second spinner as well as Venkatesh Iyer’s all-rounder role. In that light, it was good for the management to back both Bishnoi and Iyer for a full run of three games. Bishnoi, in particular, has impressed with his skidding googlies and could be a handful on the Australian pitches. There is the small matter of overtaking Chahal in the pecking order, which is easier said than done.

Chahal, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, have enjoyed resurgence in form and confidence under Rohit Sharma. Despite the difference in bowling styles, their approaches are quite similar. They are both confidence bowlers, and need a solid run to build themselves in the run-up to the World Cup.

The key for India will be finding that balance in pace. Kumar has once again ticked all boxes on yet another comeback trail, but he is in deep competition with Deepak Chahar, and for the same spot in the playing eleven.

This is where Harshal Patel has held his own. His bowling style is dissimilar to those who bowl with the new ball, and in contrast to how Bumrah operates at the death. He can make the ball skid at variable pace at the death and yet manage control over his line-length. The prospect of his partnership with Bumrah excites Indian fans at the moment, but it leaves only one spot open in the eleven for another pacer.

This continued search for bowling attack balance will be on top of India’s to-do list against Sri Lanka.

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