OPINION
Follow UsIndia comprehensively beat West Indies in the first ODI to secure a 1-0 series lead and in the process, learnt a lot of valuable lessons as well. In the absence of the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Mohammed Shami, the spinners stepped upto the plate.
The win further provided a sneak-peek into Rohit Sharma’s approach as the skipper of the current Indian set-up and how he would want to navigate through the troubled waters. From Sundar’s bowling to Prasidh taking the advantage of his height, India would objectively take away a lot of learnings to implement to their ODI strategy.
Washington Sundar underlines his impact
Washington Sundar made his ODI debut back in 2017 and wasn’t even considered for another game after that. The rise of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav, combined with the mighty middle-over efforts of Kedar Jadhav, was a major reason behind the Tamil Nadu all-rounder being pigeon-holed as a T20 player, with India looking for sustainable consistency and attacking middle-over bowling - read wrist spin - over Sundar’s economical display in the 50-Over format.
However, as a new captaincy era took over in Indian cricket, Rohit Sharma opted for Washington Sundar in the first ODI despite hinting at Kuldeep partnering with Chahal in the pre-match press conference. India ditching the Venkatesh Iyer experiment just after one series and the absence of Ravindra Jadeja worked in Sundar’s favour but looking at the way he went about the business, one can surely hope for a long run, if not a long career.
While the fall of Kuldeep Yadav is real, Ravindra Jadeja’s bowling returns in the last three years don’t inspire much confidence either. Since the conclusion of the 2019 World Cup, Jadeja averages 58.8 with the ball and has taken only 12 wickets in 15 games. Despite his improved batting display with the bat, it didn’t cut for the all-rounder role that India hoped for.
Sure enough, things are pretty cluttered at the moment and the limited number of ODI matches further drives home the fact that the dynamics can change at any moment. While that is not a nice position to be in for the side, Sundar can be a real beneficiary of that by sustaining the process. In the first ODI, he provided a glimpse of that with a three-fer in Ahmedabad.
It also needs to be mentioned that the Windies batters are not proficient against spin bowling, averaging just 24.8 against spinners since the beginning of 2020 - which is worst among all Top-10 Teams in the world. India really had it easy in that front, but then again, you don’t discount a bowler who huffs the top order at his will. If Sundar continues to repeat the basics, one might wonder if he can be the solution that India can imagine in a post-Jadeja world. He is barely 22 after all.
Prasidh’s height factor India shouldn’t ignore
No matter what the hype suggests, Prasidh Krishna was not really a successful bowler for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL. His bowling never really reaped dividends for the franchise, as the pacer had picked only 30 wickets in 34 games at an ER of 9.27 and an average of 38.4. But from his limited outings with the Indian side, the Karnataka pacer had proved that behind his lanky stature, there is a willy operator who knows his strength and can back that up with solid execution.
If the England series was the primer for the things to come, in Ahmedabad, Krishna showed why being tall and the ability to mix swing bowling with short-of-length bouncers is a gift not possessed by many. Windies players were tall, but Prasidh was not afraid of bowling back of length deliveries, an aspect of his cricket that stood out the most.
As a matter of fact, since the 2019 World Cup, India have struggled big-time in the new-ball bowling. In this time frame, Indian pacers have the worst average and economy in the powerplay (overs 1-10), while they have been the most expensive side in the middle-overs (11-40). But in Ahmedabad, Prasidh showcased that it is not easy to decimate him in the 50-Over format. There is also every chance that this is a short-term illusion and might turn out to be a false dawn, as it was for KKR from 2019 IPL, but considering the workload of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, perhaps this is a risk worth every penny.