Josh Hazlewood’s absence will make it simpler for the Indian batsmen to perform better in Sunday’s third Twenty20 International against Australia at Hobart.
For the Indian batters, Hazlewood’s precise accuracy in hitting the proper length and the unsettling bounce he consistently produces around the corridor of uncertainty turned into a bit of a nightmare.
Hazlewood has been allowed time to rest before the demanding five-Test series, with the Ashes Test beginning at the end of this month. The rest of the series will not feature him.
Additionally, his absence would give Indian batters—who struggle with bounce and seam movement—a little more confidence when facing players like Sean Abbott, Nathan Ellis, and Xavier Bartlett.
Suryakumar Yadav, the captain, and Shubman Gill, the captain-in-waiting, have both struggled to negotiate deliveries with a high degree of seam movement and extra bounce. Surya and Gill would like to review the playbook from their first game when they appeared menacing at Canberra.
During this trip, there has been controversy about the Indian team management’s fixation with batting depth, and several batting failures, such as a pitiful 125 at the MCG, have called into doubt the viability of such a strategy.
India used three spinners on a surface with extra bounce, and despite being the only Indian bowler with 100 T20I wickets, Arshdeep Singh was once again left out of the starting lineup.
In reality, the statistics indicate that India’s No. 8 has frequently faced an average of five balls each innings in the last 15 to 20 games, raising concerns about whether it is a feasible alternative.
There is a belief that when a team has an excessive number of batters, each player at the top of the order feels as though someone is pursuing them, and the approach is more careless on tracks, which calls for a little more discretion when hitting.
Some of the figures from the second game would undoubtedly be shocking, even if one believes that Harshit Rana is a capable batter, which he most surely is. Rana hit three fours and a six to score 35 from 33 balls at the MCG.
But if one takes out 18 runs scored by boundaries in four balls, Rana scored 17 runs off 29 balls and at one point wasted deliveries, leaving Abhishek Sharma stranded at the other end.
Although it is now clear that Rana is a key component of head coach Gambhir’s plans and cannot be negotiated in terms of current playing elevens, his bowling has been, to put it mildly, erratic.
However, India would be wise to consider giving up one spin bowling option in exchange for playing Arshdeep at Hobart, where the open space on one side will help swing bowling.
Since the side boundaries of the Bellerive Oval are smaller, it is crucial to hit the correct lengths because anything shorter would go over the cover, point, square leg, or mid-wicket on each side of the fence.
Bellerive Oval was where the world first witnessed the rise of Virat Kohli in ODIs back in 2012, when he produced a sublime unbeaten 133 off just 86 balls to chase down 321 against Sri Lanka. The Hobart surface has since earned a reputation as a batting paradise, especially in white-ball cricket.
Squads:
India: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Arshdeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar
Australia: Mitchell Marsh (c), Sean Abbott (games 1-3), Xavier Bartlett, Mahli Beardman (games 3-5), Tim David, Ben Dwarshuis (games 4-5), Nathan Ellis, Glenn Maxwell (games 3-5), Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kuhnemann, Mitchell Owen, Josh Philippe, Tanveer Sangha, Matthew Short, and Marcus Stoinis
