Ishan Kishan and Abhishek Sharma (ICC Photo) AHMEDABAD: With the T20 World Cup coming up, much of the hype surrounding India’s title defense has revolved around the top-order, which has acted as a killing machine against the bowling attack. However, halfway through the tournament, team management replaced words like “confidence” and “clarity” with “predictable” and “doubtful”. The top-order, which ominously boomed a month ago, is being trimmed so far in this World Cup campaign.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SIGN UP NOW!A loss of that magnitude can do that – India were, after all, bundled out for 111 while chasing 188, losing by 76 runs against South Africa in their first Super 8 game.Everything that the team management and selectors boasted about in molding the combination of Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Tilak Varma at the top of the order did not work as planned – opposition teams decoded their weaknesses all too easily.
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“We watched India’s other matches and it was nice to have both left-handers (up). You know, Aiden’s (Markram) ball spins,” David Miller said of South Africa’s decision to open the bowling with Markram spinning outside off. “It kind of gives an option where if he doesn’t spin, he can go straight through the gates. Or if he kind of holds it, it gives hope that we can get a wicket in the first over,” he added.As a result, Ishan Kishan got out for a duck on Sunday. In fact, Ishan and Abhishek’s partnership struggled to last even the first ending. On the eve of the match, captain Suryakumar Yadav scoffed at questions about whether a change at the top was possible. He seemed to be talking about Abhishek and Tilak in the same vein as Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, stalwarts who have now left the T20I scene. It is now an open secret that India prefers to load left-handed batsmen into their team, which makes it easier to plan against them. “We have reached a point where we have to think if we have to do something different or stick with the same combination,” India’s batting coach Sitanshu Kotak said after India’s collapse against South Africa.“Obviously it helps tactically to have a right-hander at the top of the order. I’m sure it’s going to be the talk of two very important matches in the next few days,” India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate said while admitting that Abhishek and Tilak’s form is now an issue. It will be a bold call to bring back Sanja Samson after he was dropped from the playing XI following the forgettable series against New Zealand.Kotak said the coaching staff refrained from talking too much to Abhishek and Tilak. “They already have a lot of things going on in their minds. If we go with 10 more things, their minds will be cluttered. In the middle of the tournament, you don’t have time to work on any technical aspects of their batting,” Kotak said.The continued mention of a collapse against the US in their tournament opener and subsequent departure from their usual attacking style of batting suggests doubts have already crept in. It became more evident when South Africa launched a counter-attack from 20/3, while the Indian batsmen repeatedly went into their shells after losing the first two wickets. Tilak and Surya built small partnerships but managed to score barely above 100.“The role of Tilak and Surya is to link up with the guys at the back end. It wasn’t like that. Every game we were down a couple of runs 0/1 or one. Look, there’s a lot of inexperience in the team,” said Doeschate.It’s a delicate stage of the tournament. Samson didn’t even look convincing in training. Doeschate insisted that they don’t want Abhishek to play a different game than what he has been doing for the last 18 months. Kotak claimed that going through a low scoring phase is nothing new for Abhishek.“If you look at Abhishek’s IPL career, he endures a series of low scores. Then he bounces back,” Kotak said.It will be interesting to see if Abhishek and Tilak get another chance to regain their form against the relatively weaker opposition in Zimbabwe or if the team management decides to ring the bell for changes.
