By: Mohit Singhal
IND VS SA Match: All the players have joined the Indian camp ahead of their series against South Africa and the leader of the ship, stylish right-hand batter KL Rahul will look to clinch the maiden series win under his stint.
He has always been under scrutiny for his leadership be it for an IPL franchise or national team.
This series will add more value to the Indian team with the fact that it marks the scouting of the players who will be going to represent the Indian team in the T20 WC in Australia 4 months later.
Many of the reputed stars in regular skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami have been given rest to keep them fresh for the upcoming tour to England starting from 1st July.
With certain members on a break, many new faces who have proved their mettle in the recently concluded Indian Premier League got the opportunity to shine on the big stage and knock on the selectors' door for their inclusion in the Indian squad for World Cup Down Under.
There are certain challenges ahead for the coach Rahul Dravid facing heat from the full-fledged Proteas team to balancing the team order and getting all blocks ticked. He further has the responsibility to hone the skills of young talents who can become the future giants in Indian Cricket.
While players like pace bowling sensation Umran Malik and left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh received their maiden call-ups in blue jersey, Veteran wicket-keeper batter Dinesh Karthik made a comeback to India colors courtsey his tremendous performance as a finisher for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL.
Taking the excerpts from the crucial matches and knockout matches from the last few tournaments, we can see that our middle order has failed to fire in almost all matches and thus we couldn’t curb our search for an ICC trophy for last one decade.
Rahul Dravid will look to solve this issue through employing some of the picks he made. While Rahul Tripathi who was robbed from the group may had solution to this problem, the likes of Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Hooda and recent entrant to this responsibility Hardik Pandya could be tested against the fiery African bowling unit.
It will be a thing to watch who can match up with the expectations and standards our previous middle order in Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni had set over the years.
From a time when Indian team had one of the best left arm pace bowlers in the world in Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Irfan Pathan to the time when there is an acute shortage of it in the Indian Cricket Structure.
But, the recent inclusion in this frame is the left arm pacer from Punjab; Arshdeep Singh. The 23-year-old pacer has got all the arrows which are required from swinging the new ball in and out of the stumps to execute the yorker perfectly in the death overs.
He even topped the list of having the best economy rate of a bowler in the death overs in this IPL giving the runs at the economy rate of only 7.20.
While the likes of Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja are doing the job of finishing the game for a while, players like Rishabh Pant, Venkatesh Iyer and now Dinesh Karthik can be hired for this role and can play a big hand in finishing the games in long grounds of Oz.
Karthik striked at an astonishing strike rate of above 200 in death overs in this IPL and regained his spot in the Indian team and can be a X-factor to the group.
Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav are all set to unite once again after a miraculous show with the ball in IPL for their respective franchises.
While Chahal became the leading wicket-taker with 27 scalps at an economy rate of 7.75, Kuldeep grabbed 21 wickets at an economy rate of 8.43 with 2 four-wicket hauls in it and stands on number 5 in the list. It will be an interesting to watch whether we can see the duo of “Kul-Cha” once again ripping out the batters.
They have other options too in left arm spinner Axar Patel whose USP is to curb the run flow and leggie Ravi Bishnoi who had a decent outing with the newbie Lucknow Super Giants.
One of the areas where the coach and captain will have to work tirelessly is to choose the best partner of skipper Rahul at a higher slot. They have immense application in that position with Ishan Kishan as the most preferred option while Ruturaj Gaikwad and Venkatesh Iyer as the sub-options.
All three had an ordinary outing in the IPL but Kishan’s case is strong due to his experience of playing against the top nations and bowling units.
The 5 matches T20I series is all set to begin from Thursday (June 9) at National Capital’s Arun Jaitley Stadium. KL Rahul has more work to done of proving his critics wrong and to make it a memorable 1st outing against South African team.
