It’s a long series — seven ODIs. And the caravan has just reached Mohali for the third game. But the excitement quotient has already hit the roof with two blockbuster matches — while Australia stunned the hosts in the first, India made an astonishing comeback and decimated the visitors to register a record run chase in the second.
The two will square off once again on Saturday at the Punjab Cricket Association stadium in the city. The third encounter may not decide the series, yet it holds great importance. Both teams, having lost a game each in a humiliating manner, understand that they quickly need to find out the best combination, or else, the series might get out of reach.
After beating each other on their respective strengths it would be interesting to see how they approach the third game. Before the series, batting was touted as India’s strength and they failed to put up a creditable total while chasing a not-so-daunting 305-run target set by Australia in the first match at Pune. Claims were made that ‘raw pace’ and ‘short-pitch balling’ unsettled them. And it wasn’t difficult to believe those claims because of Indian batsmen’s history of struggle against these two bowling weapons.
But in the very next match, chasing a much bigger target, the same batting unit completely dismantled the Aussie bowling, allaying the fears of the same old problem creeping into the new generation. The ‘raw pace’ and ‘short-pitch balling’ were dealt with an aggression that bordered on brutality.
The assault not just brought India to level at 1-1 but also proved their detractors wrong. The Indian batting line-up may have lost some great names in the recent past but not its reputation of being one of the best in the world. Though it is a bit early to say, youngsters like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and batsman Shikhar Dhawan have given reasons aplenty to believe that the Indian batting is in safe hands.
The same can’t be said about the bowling though. In the last three matches, including the one-off Twenty20, Indian bowlers have leaked 864 runs in 120 overs at more than seven runs an over. And to expect that the batsmen would chase down such big targets every time is too much to ask for.
Slow bowlers aren’t much of a worry for skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Rather, it is the self-proclaimed ‘spearhead’ Ishant Sharma and Vinay Kumar. They have been the most expensive ones for India in the last two matches. The relatively inexperienced Bhuvneshwar Kumar, meanwhile, has done a pretty good job. He is the only bowler who conceded less than run a ball in both matches.
Death bowling still remains a concern. Ishant, who is supposed to carry the death overs burden, worked on it in the nets. But it was Mohammad Shami who found the block hole — the best place to hit during death overs — more often than others. There is another option in left-arm medium-pacer Jaydev Unadkat, who turned 22 on Friday. However, there were no hints that any of them could make it to the playing eleven on Saturday.
Australia, who chose not to come out for a training session the day before the match, have lesser things to worry about. Their batsmen are in good form and are putting big totals on the board.
However, the question here is not of batting well but of batting more aggressively than the opposition because with flat pitches on offering, no target is big enough as was proved the other day in Jaipur.
The Mohali pitch is known for assisting seamers but going by the words of curator Daljit Singh, the pitch wouldn’t be as lively as it was during the Champions league T20 held here recently. With the grass in the outfield given a neat crop too, there is no reason to not expect another run riot on Saturday.