Should we be worried with Indian finishers' form ahead of T20 World Cup 2024?

The 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been quite the action-packed affair so far with multiple records getting broken and quite a few games going down the wire. It has also witnessed several uncapped Indian cricketers steal the spotlight from some of their more fancied teammates with performances that will have forced the national selectors as well as the Indian team leadership to sit up and take notice.

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) seamer Harshit Rana shone bright with his heroic final over against Sunrisers Hyderabad, as did Chennai Super Kings’ Sameer Rizvi and Punjab Kings’ Shashank Singh, both against Gujarat Titans. And then there’s Lucknow Super Giants pacer Mayank Yadav and his scorching pace, which has led to many an expert calling for him to get fast-tracked into the Indian team for the upcoming T20 World Cup.

Can the same be said about some of the more senior Indian cricketers currently participating in the IPL, especially those who bat in the middle order and are required to finish matches more often than not. And lest we forget, are central to India’s plans for the upcoming T20 World Cup.

Unfortunately for the Indian team and for its army of billion-plus supporters, that isn’t quite the case this time around, and does raise some concern in the build-up to the mega event.

India T20I vice-captain Suryakumar Yadav, for starters, hasn’t played any form of the sport since smashing a match-winning century against South Africa in Johannesburg in December that helped the Men in Blue level the three-match T20I series. SKY had since undergone ankle surgery and was undergoing rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy, and missed Mumbai Indians’ first three matches of the season — all of which have ended in a defeat.

He only linked up with the Hardik Pandya-led squad on Friday ahead of MI’s home game against Delhi Capitals and it remains to be seen if he makes a solid impact with the bat right away, or whether he’s gathered any rust during his time away from the game.

Also returning from long absences are newly-appointed MI captain Hardik Pandya and his Delhi Capitals counterpart Rishabh Pant. Pandya had made his first appearance since suffering an ankle injury during India’s ICC World Cup meeting with Bangladesh in October while leading MI in their season-opening clash against GT in Ahmedabad, and has since then collected just 69 runs in three outings at an average of 23, though he’s been collecting those runs at a fast clip with a strike rate of 153.33.

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Pant made his way back into the competitive scene after an even longer absence — DC’s season opener against Punjab Kings in Mullanpur was his first match at the senior level since surviving a car accident in December 2022.

While he was dismissed for an unimpressive 18 off 13 balls against Punjab followed by a knock of 28 at nearly a run-a-ball, he has made massive improvement in his last two outings by collecting back-to-back half-centuries against Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders respectively, striking at 220 against the latter.

Despite his heroics against KKR, batting legends such as Virender Sehwag felt the DC skipper and wicketkeeper-batter could’ve done a bit more, especially by not throwing his wicket away at a crucial stage when Delhi were chasing a mammoth 273 set by Kolkata and ended up crashing to a 106-run defeat.

“Yes, Pant’s innings was good. But you didn’t score much in the first two games, and now, when you’re scoring runs, you are giving your wicket away. You should have stayed, reached a century, and remained unbeaten on 110 or 120. Because runs dry pretty fast,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz after the match on Wednesday.

Ravindra Jadeja too has been viewed as something of a finisher in the white-ball formats, but his numbers CSK’s four outings so far this season have been less than impressive, especially when you take into the account the fact that his strike rate has barely gone past 150. He had been struggling to collect runs quickly against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Friday, and could only manage 31 off 23 deliveries as CSK finished with a below-par total of 165/5 that was easily overhauled by the ‘Orange Army’.

As for KKR finisher Rinku Singh, whose red-hot run in last year’s IPL led to him getting fast-tracked into the Indian team later that year, he’s only managed to make an impact in the game against Delhi, where he collected 26 runs in eight deliveries striking at over 300. While he remains India’s designated finisher in the shortest format, he will need to show a lot more consistency this season.

The rise of the youngsters and uncapped Indians this season will have put the aforementioned star players under a lot more pressure ahead of the mega event, and could even lead to the selectors taking a couple of bold decisions when picking India’s squad for the T20 World Cup later this month.