India vs Australia | Takeaways : Kuldeep’s thinking ability and Bumrah playing straight to Maxwell’s head
Australia have broken their losing run in T20Is as Brisbane’s big boundaries resulted in the Indians failing to clear them, more often than not. Notwithstanding the result, the game was an exhibition of India’s batting riches and also, Glenn Maxwell’s mental block against Indian bowlers.
Kuldeep is slowly becoming a thinking bowler
High-class spinners don’t need to be a thinking bowler. For example, a Shane Warne is effective even if he doesn’t think much, but Ravichandran Ashwin has to do that in order to be ahead of the batsmen. So when you take a pause to understand the dynamics of a left-arm spinner’s engagement, you first get befuddled like many of us, as most batsman's mind designed to operate to right-handedness. Kuldeep, a fine bowler that he is, uses the advantage to his stride and coupled that up with his variations to pose a huge threat. He hardly needs to use his brain to think much.
However, after more than a year on the international circuit, he has no longer been a bowler dependent on variation only rather has developed a strong knack of playing to the batsman's head. As most of the teams, who have come face to face with India in the last one year, have understood that there is no universal guide to playing spin, but there are minor tidbits to be garnered to build a substantial game plan. Marcus Stoinis knew that playing sweep is the best option and he took that way from the very first ball.
After dismissing Chris Lynn on the first ball of the 11th over, it seemed like the spinner was not prepared against the new RCB recruit as Stonis swept him for a couple. The left-arm wrist spinner then planned to bowl the ball on the leg-stump once again but seeing Stoinis already getting into the position, decided to stop at the delivery stride. When he bowled the next delivery, there was a minor exchange of instructions with Rohit Sharma, who even before Kuldeep bowled the ball started running towards the leg-slip region from the first-slip area. The ball though went for a boundary, it was a demonstration of the fact that Kuldeep has no more a bowler who runs in and bowl thinking his variations would do the job.
Loss notwithstanding, this is a fine Indian T20 team
Hardik Pandya’s status as a three-dimensional player in T20s made him a sensation, but his career so far is nothing but a disappointment. However, how Krunal Pandya remained out of India’s T20 plans for long can be debatable considering the fact that the eldest of Pandya brothers is the best all-rounder in the country - ability-wise and impact-wise. One might suggest that today, of all days, is the worst possible day to talk about Krunal, but the game indicated that it was him and Rishabh Pant who actually gave the fine touch to the team in a long run.
Krunal conceded runs and even failed to take the team down the line with the bat, but it was one-off. As per impact, he has shown that he is much better than anyone else in the country to take up the lone all-rounder’s spot. Unlike the England series, where India experimented with Siddarth Kaul and Deepak Chahar, the selection of Khaleel Ahmed too appears to have been catalyzed by a desire to have a left-arm pace option. Coming to Rishabh Pant, everyone knows what he brings to the table and is a much better T20 batsman than MS Dhoni any day.
With the next T20 World Cup in 2020 happening in Australia, India have plenty of time to give a good run to the newbies. While Pant and Krunal - even if Hardik makes a comeback - are almost certain to hold onto the position, giving Khaleel a run in the team should be considered as in the modern-day cricket quality is the byproduct variation.
The many situations of Glenn Maxwell
Glenn Maxwell is an interesting cricketer. He can be the pack leader at one night and take on the spinners and pacers with equal ease and can be ridiculously ineffective in others. That was the pain of being a Maxwell fan - you can never be predictable or putting money on him to satisfy you. And today was no different.
Maxwell had a history of getting out to Kuldeep and Yuzvendra Chahal. While the latter dismissed him as many as four times in Australia’s last tour of India, in the two innings Maxwell has faced Kuldeep in T20s before this match, the spinner dismissed him on both occasions. However, there was a common theme to the Aussie’s batting as he had scored 40 runs at a massive strike rate of 257.1 and the main reason that he was getting out to him that he was trying to go hard against him. When he recognized that early today and to take Kuldeep out of the equation, he played him safe scoring 9 runs in 8 balls.
But while planning so much against Kuldeep, he neglected his other kryptonite in this match - Jasprit Bumrah. In the seven innings before this match, the Mumbai Indians bowler got him out five times while conceding a total of 38 runs. Most importantly, the hard hitter had a false shot percentage of 42.8% which propelled Kohli to bring Bumrah to bowling and at the same time, the rain started. Once the game resumed, it took only one ball for Bumrah to end Maxwell’s stay in the crease.
Talk about being the bunny.
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