In the euphoria of a successful campaign, teams tend to ignore several mistakes. And India would do themselves a huge favour to avoid this situation. The present team may look perfect but there is still a huge room for improvement. For instance , the middle-order and death overs bowling.
The success of Shikhar Dhawan at the top of the order during the Champions Trophy meant that the middle-order was barely tested. Dinesh Karthik, apart from his twin centuries in warm-up games, batted four times in the tournament scoring 14, 51 not out, 11 not out and 6. It wasn’t a bad performance considering the limited opportunities he got but he is yet to cement his place in the side. And more importantly, he is yet to prove himself as a batsman who can anchor the batting in the middle-order.
Yuvraj Singh and Manoj Tiwary are two other batsmen who fit the bill for this spot. Yuvraj is a proven match-winner but is out of form for quite some time now while Tiwary’s fickle body is one of the several reasons for his absence from the team. Both are young enough to deserve another chance if they manage to prove their form and fitness.
Another problem is death bowling. Despite all the impressive performances that Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma have given recently, MS Dhoni still can’t trust them to take the team through to the last few overs of the innings. With two new balls rule and Australian conditions helping seamers, an experienced head like Zaheer Khan is needed in the team. Though he will be 36 by 2015, his accuracy and control can prove to be very crucial provided he stays fit. It will be in India’s interest if there is still some cricket left in Zaheer.
Another option is that either one of these three step-up and take the responsibility or team management finds another bowler who can be effective in death overs.
There is one more issue which may crop up in the coming months. Rohit Sharma, who took up the challenge of opening the innings in England very well, is not a regular opener. He may have come good in one tournament but opening is a specialised position and one needs to have proper exposure to succeed at this position. It is not to take away any credit from him. Here is a need to have a regular opener like Gautam Gambhir. The left-hander hasn’t done anything of note in last one year but age is on his side – he is just 31. If he can make a comeback, it will give India a dependable batsman with the ability to play crucial knocks. There is Murali Vijay as well but he is not looking upto it, atleast in the shorter format. And he is yet to perform in an away series.
India need to evolve constantly as a team to deal with the challenges of international cricket. And they shouldn’t shy away from looking back for experienced heads and forward for fresh blood.