Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, India swept away Australia in the T20I series to emerge victorious by an amazing 3-0 margin — this feat is worthy of celebration. We’ve celebrated, and it’s now time for reckoning and analysis.
First, just who did India beat in the T20I series? It’s clear that India beat a very disinterested Australia in the T20I series. How else would you describe a team that, after the loss to India in the first T20I, sent two of its best players (Steve Smith and David Warner) to New Zealand to prepare for their next assignment? Clearly, Australia believed that the tour of New Zealand — which includes three ODIs and two Tests — is more important than the T20I series against India. This was confirmed after the second T20I at Melbourne, when Australia sent their first-choice wicketkeeper, Matthew Wade, also to New Zealand to get acclimatised to the conditions there.
This is evidence enough that Australia treated the T20I series against India as testing grounds for their young talent — as many as six players made their T20I debuts in this series. Three of them made their debut in the second game, in which Australia made six changes in the team.
Testing waters in ODIs
Australia fielded a below-par team in the ODIs too, due to injuries or with an intention of giving exposure to emerging talent. Top bowlers Mitchell Starc and James Pattinson didn’t feature in the series, while another first-choice bowler, Josh Hazelwood, played only the first ODI.
The retirement of Mitchell Johnson has left a hole in the Australian attack, and they are seeking young talent to plug it. This is the reason they gave exposure to the likes of Kane Richardson, Joel Paris, Scott Boland, Andrew Tye and John Hastings against India.
India too fielded some young bowlers, giving debut caps to bowlers Barinder Sran and Jasprit Bumrah, and all-rounders Rishi Dhawan, Gurkeerat Mann and Hardik Pandya on this tour.
The inexperienced attacks of the two teams made the eight games of this tour an exhibition of the batting muscle of the two teams. The bowlers from both the sides were merely making up the numbers.
In the five ODIs, both the teams breached the 300-run mark four times, and once they fell just short of 300; in the T20Is, India posted 180-plus totals in all three matches. Australia easily beat India in the ODI series, and India returned the compliment in the T20I series.
Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma looked almost unstoppable and would have been tough to contain for any attack. However, it’s relevant to point out here that last year against the first-choice Australia attack, India failed to win a single ODI game in the tri-series (which involved England too), and lost the World Cup semifinal, too.
Relief for Dhoni
When India were 0-4 down in the ODI series, things looked extremely bad for India captain MS Dhoni and the clamour for his head was growing louder. But the T20I series sweep has changed everything – he’s counting the “positives” from the tour and looking ahead at the World T20 with great hope.
India’s win has established them as firm favourites for the T20 World Cup, even if picking up a favourite team for a T20 tournament is perilous and very rarely accurate. No pre-tournament favourite team has ever won the T20 World Cup.
The T20 is a fickle format and it’s not sensible to put all our eggs in this basket. India were the eighth-best team in the world (ICC rank No. 8) last week, and now they’re the best, No. 1! Australia were No. 2 and now they’re No. 8. The crisis-hit West Indies were No. 1 and are now No. 2. The microcosm of T20 world is ruled by such absurdities. Let’s not get too excited by a few “historic achievements” in it.
India have never beaten Australia in a Test series in that country; they’ve played only one bilateral ODI series there, which they lost 1-4. The T20I clean sweep provides relief from that grim history. Let’s count our gains, and not forget that India beat a disinterested, experimental Australian team.
