Overreaction Monday | India vs England edition ft. KL Rahul, Jos Buttler, and Shreyas Iyer

03/22/2021

Back on the desk after a weekend of full-on partying, so beating the Monday Blues is taking some time. As suggested by the physician, the best way to triumph over the mind is to smash the Overreactions from the week gone by and warm myself up for a more productive day afterward.

India’s Hide and Seek game with KL Rahul

After Vikram Rathour, in no uncertain terms, stated that the management will lend their full support to the under-fire KL Rahul, Virat Kohli replaced the Karnataka batsman with himself and even went as far as saying he is looking forward to opening with Rohit more in the future.

SC Take: This is absolutely rubbish, isn’t it? After claiming that the team supports Rahul and will give him the chance to prosper, now coming out and saying stuff like this doesn’t cut it. If the skipper has lost sight of the fact, let me reiterate this to you - Ishan Kishan suffered a niggle for which he had to warm the bench and now with Kohli throwing his hat into the ring, he might think he is solving a problem but that is actually digging deep to a mess from which it will be hard recovering from.

Rahul’s strike-rate has been a problem in the last couple of years but for India, the Karnataka player has been a solid proposition. He holds the aces in the direst of situations and for a confident player like Rahul, benching him in his most preferred format is the worst result one can wish for. I hope the team management, at least, for once, will stick to their promise and not breed insecurity in the side.

Shreyas Iyer is not an accumulator

After Shreyas Iyer’s knock of 37 runs off 18 balls in the fourth T20I in Ahmedabad, Twitter went into a meltdown with affluent praise on how the Mumbaikar is no more a run accumulator.

SC Take: A win or a knock can mask a lot of things, the sooner Indian cricket fans realize the true impact of a player in the long run the better. Shreyas Iyer is probably one of the most gifted and hard-working cricketers of the generation and his importance to the ODI set-up can never be overstated, but in extension, he is just another anchor in this Indian team.

If a career T20 strike rate of 130.32 doesn’t convince you, then here is a fact. Iyer took 48 balls to score 67 runs in the opening game after a top-order collapse. He was hailed for the situation awareness which is fine but that is playing to his own image. But for one knock, if we lose sense and a perspective, that is worse than actually moving things on a disorganized plane. If the Indian fans realize this that is good, but it seems like most of them are on a different tangent altogether.

Jos Buttler needs to play as a finisher

After England failed to close the last game, with Morgan failing almost every time, calls for Jos Buttler to bat as a finisher have grown by leaps and bounds.

SC Take: Since Rajasthan Royals tried it successfully, Jos Buttler has been a revelation for England’s white-ball plans, with Eoin Morgan using him as an opener. It reaped dividends of course, with Jason Roy, Dawid Malan, and Ben Stokes to follow but as many have pointed out, with Shardul Thakur fine-tuning against the left-handers, the model might not be sustainable. However, the argument is not really a standard one.

Morgan can do the job so effectively even though England have found themselves at a crossroad when it comes to Ben Stokes solution. And with Buttler being highly successful, averaging over 50, it doesn’t even make any sense to ask him to bat down. Instead, England can look for a left-field solution like adding Sam Billings or Moeen Ali to the set-up to form a core group for future assignments. The realization of that is a bigger celebration than asking Buttler not to open.