Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Melbourne, India have been thoroughly hammered in the first two One-day Internationals — this despite the fact that Australia are fielding a second-string pace bowling attack. India have batted first twice and racked up 300-plus totals, but that was clearly not enough. India’s bowling frailties have been thoroughly exposed. They now know that if they are to win a match on this tour, it’s up to their batsmen — the bowlers can’t defend even huge scores.
India meet the rampaging Australians in the must-win third ODI here tomorrow. After India lost the first two ODIs despite setting targets of over 300 for the Aussies, under-fire skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni admitted that his batsmen will have to play more shots and score more runs. Tomorrow is effectively India’s last chance to turn the tables in the five-match series.
Dhoni under pressure
Since last year’s World Cup, India have lost ODI series to Bangladesh (away) and South Africa (home), and had a token series win over the lowly Zimbabwe. They are now on the brink of losing another series. It is not a comfortable position for Dhoni to be in. He gave up the Test captaincy during the Australia tour in 2014-15. After each series defeat in ODIs, the calls for moving beyond him in limited-overs cricket are growing louder.
He has led India to two series defeats in a row. Now, with his team staring down the barrel, he needs to show why he is still the man to do the job. That’s easier said than done as he doesn’t have great resources at his disposal. After the loss in Brisbane, he highlighted the fact that scoring 300-plus totals in consecutive games wasn’t enough.
He is fully aware that big scores don’t matter if his bowlers can’t defend them. When he talked about asking his batsmen to score 330-340 from here onwards, he wasn’t joking.
Rohit in form
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are going great guns and need to shoulder even more responsibility. Their partnership scoring-rate at Brisbane was markedly better than at Perth, but the death overs were not fruitful in the second ODI.
Ajinkya Rahane played a handsome hand but it wasn’t enough to power through to the finish. Dhoni admired the way the No. 4 performed, but also mentioned his lack of power-hitting. Manish Pandey has played only five balls so far, coming in after 46 overs in Brisbane, and it would be premature to evaluate his performance right now. But perhaps Gurkeerat Mann is a better choice, for he could also bowl a few overs, sharing the load of the five-pronged bowling attack.
Shikhar Dhawan’s bad form has continued, which is a huge concern, one that continues to be neglected by the team management because he has the ability to occasionally get going. Dhawan doesn’t have a single ODI hundred in the 13 games since his last century, against Ireland during the World Cup. With eight of these 13 matches played in the Subcontinent, he averages only 29.07 with a strike-rate of 79.91 in them. It is not good enough. Dropping him could solve India’s conundrum — Rahane could open, while there would be room for both Pandey and Mann in the middle-order.
Bowling woes
Dhoni, though, is unlikely to reconsider his bowling attack. It is again expected to be a 3-2 pace-spin scenario. The only question is over which pacers would play. Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are certainties, given the track is a drop-in pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Ishant Sharma will be in the mix on account of the bounce he can generate. But it remains to be seen if the captain backs Bhuvneshwar Kumar over Umesh Yadav. Whatever the combination, India know they must score 320-plus and then bowl with discipline, and not drop catches.
