Ahmedabad: Abhishek Sharma was understandably the most talked-about cricketer at the Narendra Modi stadium here on Friday. Two days out from India’s first Super 8 match against South Africa, one could cut the tension around this colossal arena with a knife. The reason? India’s prime weapon coming into this T20 World Cup is yet to get off the mark.
Friday was about preparing for a match which is going to be highly tactical.
Brothers Morne Morkel and Albie Morkel, in coaching roles for India and South Africa respectively, haven’t spoken to each other for a fortnight.
Most of the drills — from the South African team’s practice in the scorching afternoon heat to Abhishek taking guard with bat in the nets at the fag end of the day — revolved around left-handers.
South Africa captain Aiden Markram, off-spinner George Linde, Keshav Maharaj and the pace attack spent over an hour practicing bowling to left-handers in the nets with assistant coach Albie Morkel taking stance at the batting end.
Abhishek may have not got going but he still instills fear in the opposition camp.
Markram has played enough cricket with and against Abhishek in the IPL to know the damage he can cause to South Africa on Sunday.
However, it’s not just about Abhishek.
In pursuit of striking the right balance, India ended up with a deluge of left-handers in the batting lineup.
Naturally, the off-spinners came into play.
Maharaj kept firing full deliveries outside the offstump while pacers Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi frequently switched between bowling from over the wicket to bowling from round the wicket.
After India’s last match against the Netherlands, assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate did concede the team’s rather submissive performance against the finger spinners in the tournament.
South Africa is a professional enough unit to work on further exposing India’s supposed frailties with the bat.
There may be murmurs around India becoming too predictable by stacking their batting with too many left-handers.
It wasn’t surprising when Abhishek did get into the nets, after a long chat with head coach
Gautam Gambhir.
He spent a lot of time batting against the spinners.
There was much restraint instead of wild swinging.
It was back to basics for him even against the seamers.
The big shots came rarely off his bat.
“Luckily, there’s been someone standing up for Abhishek. But we are in the important phase of the tournament. I am sure, not just for the team but for the viewers, he will come good because of the entertainment he offers,” India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel said on Friday evening.
It’s strange how a batting lineup which went about ruthlessly assaulting bowling attacks barely a month ago has suddenly started to look a tad vulnerable going into the business end of the tournament.
The first round of matches — three against the associate nations of the ICC — were meant to iron out the chinks.
Instead, India go into the Super 8 stage still reworking their strategies.
“That’s been the makeup of the team coming into this World Cup. The opposition bowlers will still have sleepless nights,” Morne said of the team composition.
“We know the South African bowlers will be working on taking the ball away from the left-handers.
So, we will prepare for that,” he added.
Thus, India’s nets session under lights for the next three hours focused on what the South Africans and the teams going forward would throw at them.
Ishan Kishan, in the dreamiest phase of his career, looked more intent on driving and punching off the backfoot through the off side.
Arshdeep Singh hung around that line for much of Ishan’s batting stint.
The spinners stuck to the off-stump line to the lefthanders.
Tilak Varma, not at his fluent best yet in the tournament, moved to the practice pitches outside the stadium with throwdown specialists just to work on the off-side game.
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