India’s captain and think tank made a strategic decision to go harder earlier and it has been paying off for them
Sidharth Monga17-Oct-2023Nobody mourns the reduction in the amount of ODI cricket between the last World Cup and this one. You can’t blame them. Still, it is a shame that because so little 50-over cricket is played, and even less by the best players, we might sometimes fail to notice transformative pieces of work. Rohit Sharma’s transformation since he became the full-time India ODI captain might just be one of those.In a World Cup, though, everyone notices. After the duck in the first match in difficult conditions against Australia, Rohit has practically ended two matches inside the first powerplay. He scored 76 off 43 in the first ten overs against Afghanistan, and 45 off 30 against Pakistan. As with everything he does, this was not random. Not a case of feeling good about it on the day and swinging for the hills.He has been batting with elevated intent in ODIs for a while now. Since the start of 2022, which is when he assumed the captaincy, 35 batters have scored 300 or more runs within the first powerplay in ODIs. Only two have gone quicker than Rohit’s strike rate of 111. Neither of these two – Travis Head and Phil Salt – has scored nearly as many runs as Rohit, nor is either of them in a leadership role.Related
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Revolutions in cricket are generally planned by captains but enacted by youngsters. The captain – usually a batter – rarely takes on a risky job. In the history of the sport, only two captains have gone delightfully bonkers for a considerable period of time: Brendon McCullum in 2015 and Chris Gayle in 2009.McCullum scored at 163 in the first ten overs through 2015, and Gayle at 117 in 2009. That, though, is their nature. Rohit’s method has been different. The turnaround in his career centred on his becoming obsessed with not getting out in the first 20 balls, and then gradually accelerating before exploding towards the end. He has changed the whole philosophy of his batting. Not only has he changed it, more incredibly, he encountered failure when he started making the change but still kept at it.It all began with T20Is, where India’s approach with the bat was not quite contemporary when he took over. Possibly the new management impressed upon him the need to change. Possibly he wanted the change himself. But he had to earn the right to be able to tell others to put a lower price on their wicket. He couldn’t have done so without lowering the price of his own wicket.!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
India still didn’t win the 2022 T20 World Cup, but Rohit kept at it in ODIs, which were becoming notorious for the formula of watchful starts. What is difficult to figure out, though, is why the captain felt the need to push the intent so high so early. Difficult because India guard their strategy more fiercely than possibly any other team in the world.Clearly, though, it is a strategic shift. India went from 4.44 an over in the batting powerplay in 2019 to 4.83 and 6.27 in 2022 and 2023. Years 2020 and 2021 had hardly any ODI cricket in them. Before the 2019 World Cup, India went at better than five an over in only one year since 2012 – in 2013, which incidentally happens to be when Rohit, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli came together as their top three and dominated the run-scoring till the 2019 World Cup.It has been a funny old year in ODIs. In India earlier this year, the new white ball was hooping around corners under the lights during the series against New Zealand and Sri Lanka. It promised a fascinating World Cup, but come the event, this lot of balls is doing precious little barring the odd exception. The ball was seaming and swinging for eight overs back then; now it barely does for eight balls.It is possible the lack of swing has emboldened Rohit further during this World Cup, but his intent has been high even before this.Given how little India want to give away, understanding their approach here might need guesses, some more educated than others. It never hurts to break the back of a chase early. Rohit possibly doesn’t want middling chases to become tricky ones. The other possible reason is that he wants to trust his middle order more, and wants for them to not end up like they did in the 2019 World Cup semi-final. While you want to play as many balls as you can, you want to maximise them. If you do get out doing that, your middle order gets an opportunity to do the same – as opposed to one fine day finding themselves fighting all kinds of fires with no game time behind them.It is more likely just about Rohit leading by example in order to earn the right to demand higher intent from others, but in doing so he has looked sensational. However, you do feel like asking why it took him, and India, so long.
