India vs Australia | Takeaways: Australia’s struggle against spin and Kedar Jadhav balm to India’s WC plans
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Yuzvendra Chahal picked up six wickets and MS Dhoni hit his third consecutive fifty as India secured their first-ever bilateral ODI series win in Australia. However, Australia’s struggle against spin and Kedar Jadhav’s all-around display came out as the biggest takeaways from the MCG win.
Australia’s struggle against spin - traditional or new age problems?
Let’s settle with this idea first. Ahead of the ODI at the G, Chahal had managed just 13 wickets at an average of 37.84 in his last 11 ODIs since June 2018 and featured just once in India's last 10 limited-overs matches. Now, he replaced Kuldeep Yadav and picked a six-wicket haul in his immediate comeback. Even after cutting them some slack for their inexperience, one still couldn’t fathom the level of negative tactics Australia
To be very precise, since their last World Cup at home, Australia’s batting average against spin is a lacklustre 35.51, which is the seventh best in the world, and it’s also affecting their results significantly. In the last one year, they failed to put up even one good performance against any oppositions, which has put doubts on their World Cup preparations given the flatter English conditions is going to be more helpful for the spinners more than ever, especially in the early summer. So, the question here is what is the reason for the Australian batsmen's incredible struggles against spin? As evident from the last two matches, the issue seems to be rather a recent one than the ones faced by their predecessors.Â
The Australian players, since the last WC victory, have attacked 48% of their deliveries against the slower bowlers, which is the highest among all ODI teams. However, as a matter of fact, India, whose batsmen average an incredible 64 against the spinners, during that period, is at the 11th position when it comes to play attacking shots against the spinners and instead they go for more singles and doubles in the middle overs before going gaga over the pacers in the death. The trick has been effective for the Indians, who undoubtedly are the best limited-overs side in the world at the moment. Australia, however, due to their lack of game awareness have faltered in their approach to tackle the spinners and an intelligent bowler like Chahal doesn’t commit that many mistakes that one would pounce on later. A change in approach may well help them as a solid defensive trait is very much necessary in ODI cricket.
Finch the new Rahul against Bhuvneshwar’s in-ducker
It has been a forgettable summer for Aaron Finch and now, including the MCG one, he has gone 23 innings in which he has scored only one half-century. His ODI record in the summer ended with a total of 83 runs in six innings against South Africa and India. While the runs have been elusive for the man from Victoria, the manner of the dismissal must haunt him the most. He has been dismissed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s inswingers in all three times in the series.Â
Check the pattern. In the first game, Kumar nipped the ball from a length, leaving Finch unsure about his footwork. As a result, he got half-forward and the gap between the bat and the pad resulted in the ball sneaking in to hit the off stump. In the second game, the Indian pacer bowled a full ball and that swung back in late to take his off-stump away. Today, another in-ducker found Finch dead in his tracks as he was caught plumb. A similar kind of problem that had deserted KL Rahul in the last English summer and the Windies series.Â
For a fast bowler, the toughest thing while bowling to Finch is the right length as his tall stature makes it easy for him to go on the front foot quickly and, consequently, his back-foot play becomes minimal. However, the Aussie skipper is comfortable opening the face of the bat to get singles, and so Bhuvneshwar focused on luring him into a drive. And when he eventually got one to move in, the batsman had already been out of his position and was caught plumb today. This is a very negative intuition and something that nobody expects from the batsman of the calibre of Finch. Even though he admits that he needs a break and his bad form is the result of continuous intense cricket, his technique has deserted him big-time, and he needs to sort that out.
Why India’s team selection was bang on
Hindsight is a very easy vantage point to look at things. You have the idea of how the things transpired and give the justification of your action. Virat Kohli will sleep peacefully tonight after leading India to their first-ever bilateral ODI series win, but most importantly, he will be happy seeing his plans falling in place. Twitter went abuzz criticising his decision to drop Ambati Rayudu in favour of Kedar Jadhav, especially after backing all throughout for the all-important No.4 spot.Â
However, there was a good enough cricketing reason to back that up. Given India jettisoned Mohammed Siraj to bring in Vijay Shankar, they needed an extra bowler now to partner the Tamil Nadu off-spinner. Ahead of the series, Shankar told SportsCafe that injuries took a toll on his bowling and he was on his way to regaining his bowling mojo, and that’s the reason why it was difficult to trust the debutant for giving you 10 overs. Due to that, Kedar Jadhav had to step in to fill in those middle overs and he did a brilliant job at it. It is helpful in the long run as both of them provide a batting cushion lower down the order and will ease out the pressure from both Dinesh Karthik and MS Dhoni.
Today, in the process, India also finalised an ideal playing XI for the World Cup - that is having eight players who can bat and six players who can bowl. The line-up of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and one of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal was as good a combine as it gets. Even if India want both the wrist-spinners to play, they can replace them with Ravindra Jadeja and the team will still pose a huge challenge.
