FIFA World Cup T20: India's strategic shift ahead of Pakistan clash | Cricket News - The Tech Word News

Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav during a training session at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. (PTI photo) To cope with the relatively slow pitches in the tournament, especially in Colombo, India want the bowlers to improve their game and batting to adapt quicker…NEW DELHI: India’s pacers and spinners split into two separate nets at one of the central squares here at Ferozeshah Kotla on Tuesday evening. For the next two hours, the bowlers played at full intensity, a rare scenario in the middle of a long and important tournament in which players try to conserve energy for the big moments. The batters’ sustained attacks have been making headlines for more than a month. Under the lights of the Cauldron, the focus was firmly on the bowlers, who started out two days before the game against Namibia.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SIGN UP NOW!Only Abhishek Sharma, still recovering from a stomach ailment, did not turn up for the rigorous session.It was expected that the preparation was not only for the match with Namibia. As it stands, the Indian team is making a significant change in their approach. With the match against Pakistan in Colombo on February 15 clearing all administrative and political hurdles late on Monday night, it’s time to pay attention to the details. Despite the scare against USA last Saturday, the tournament really gets going for India from Sunday. The conditions in Colombo, which were vastly different from what India have played in recently, will take up a lot of space in the mind.

Inside India’s clean session ahead of the T20 World Cup match against Namibia

“We understand the sentiments and the different politics between the two countries. But I think it’s really important for us to focus on just the cricketing side of things. It will be a challenge going to Colombo, where Pakistan have been playing for the last two weeks. We are fully focused on bringing our best game to this game next week,” India’s outspoken assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschach said on Tuesday.The nature of the pitches in the tournament has not generally encouraged big scores so far. The relatively slow pitch at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo will certainly not escape the attention of the Indian think tank. Therefore, there is an urge to deviate from all-out aggressive batting, where the pitch is expected to tire and slow down as the tournament progresses.“Judging by how the course played in the first five or six days of the tournament, there might be a slight revision of the strategy and how we approach it,” Doeschate said.“The pitches haven’t played quite the way we thought they would and we want to be adaptive again. We should have been a lot better than we were in Mumbai (against USA). We went all out but with the kind of pitches around you want some technique,” he added before focusing on the bowling attack.“I don’t think our pitchers have fired yet,” Doeschate said. “It’s maybe a bit easy to look at the USA game and say it was a really good bowling performance, but you have to look at it objectively in terms of where we put the ball and how we used the ball. We also expect a lot more from the bowlers.”“Having the top-class bowlers that we have gives the batsmen the freedom to make mistakes in this format. If you keep shooting for 250, you’re going to make mistakes. But we also have to react to situations,” Doeshcate said.Washington offers optionsWashington Sundar is having his first training session after recovering from a rib injury he suffered a month ago and the team has started judging combinations based on pitch conditions. “You know the luxury of four all-around machines is that you can change the mix. That’s where Washington comes in,” Doeschate said.

Index