In Rohit Sharma's India, pieces of what Virat Kohli left behind as Pakistan steamrolled in lop-sided World Cup bummer
This may be Rohit Sharma's Indian team but certain lingering pieces of Virat Kohli's tenure cannot go unnoticed.
November of 2021 was tumultuous time in Indian cricket, perhaps its most strenuous chapter since the 2013 spot fixing scandal. The Virat Kohli vs Sourav Ganguly feud was out in the open for public consumption after India's most successful Test captain was sacked from ODIs. Although Kohli had given up T20I captaincy, he was keen to continue in one-dayers hoping to win the World Cup at home. But Ganguly and BCCI had other plans, and Kohli eventually succumbed, his thoughts not aligning with the board's.
With India fresh off a World Cup elimination, the baton passed to Rohit Sharma. He was expected to give India what Kohli couldn't – an ICC silverware – but pretty soon, even the most successful IPL captain realised that leading India is far more challenging than Mumbai Indians. Rohit and Rahul Dravid were given a team Kohli and Ravi Shastri nearly raised from scratch, so when most of them went absent due to injuries, India were not ready for the repercussions – such as failing to qualify for last year's Asia Cup final and a defeat to Bangladesh which no one saw coming.
When Kohli left, Mohammed Siraj was giving Ishant Sharma stiff competition as India's third pacer in Tests, Kuldeep Yadav was away in the wilderness and Jasprit Bumrah was fatigued. Two years down the line, all three of their fortunes have swung the entire arc. Siraj is the world's No. 1 ODI bowler, Kuldeep is this year's second-highest wicket-taker and Bumrah is even more menacing than before. India at their full strength can ransack oppositions at will, and after a testing year-long-wait, Rohit is finally at a space where he can enjoy this luxury. But he wouldn't have been in this position had he not played a role in nourishing the emotionally-damaged, mentally-wrecked Kuldeep and making a full-of-promise Siraj realise his ODI pedigree.
Against Pakistan at the World Cup, with Ashwin not playing, Kuldeep's 10 overs were going to be huge from India's point of view. A big chunk of Kuldeep's success – the golden period from 2017 to 2019 – when he was an integral part of Kohli's India was due to the presence of MS Dhoni behind the stumps. Everytime Kuldeep would get flustered, a quick advice from MSD caused a turnaround. But once Dhoni retired, Kuldeep went into a shell; isolated. For over three years he was all over the place, before gaining Rohit's trust. The skipper kept a close eye on Kuldeep's Yo-Yo test results and rehab reports, and a few technical tweaks later, the wrist-spinner's resurgence was such that he shoved Yuzvendra Chahal out of contention.
Outside of Rohit, he found a new partner-in-crime in KL Rahul the wicketkeeper. The two were in constant tuning during the Asia Cup game against Sri Lanka and that same rapport became Pakistan's undoing at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium. When Kuldeep appealed for an LBW against Babar Azam for missing a sweep, Rahul was not too confident - India were lucky not to lose a review. For the first seven overs, Kuldeep's speed ranged in the mid-80s, but the moment Rahul walked up to him and exchanged words, he began giving the ball more air, subsequently slowing it down. Two balls in, Saud Shakeel was caught stone dead and Iftikhar Ahmed bowled round his legs off the last. Pakistan, be it out of fear or approach, kept blocking and paid the price. Kuldeep, now with seven wickets in two ODIs against Pakistan, has an average of 8.57 and an economy rate that reads a miserly 3.33.
Like Kuldeep, Siraj's brain too has been working overtime for a bowler playing his 33rd ODI. He realised very early that barring the first over, the ball wasn't going to swing. So instead, he turned to bowling cross-seams. A cross-seam delivery as compared to the conventional seam-position skids, a tactic he employed against Abdullah Shafique. Rohit's confidence in Siraj has grown by leaps and bounds, to an extent that when he decided to bring back pacers in the 28th over, it was Siraj and not Bumrah he turned to. With only 11 scored in the previous four combined by spinners Kuldeep and Ravindra Jadeja, three balls into Siraj's new spell, Babar almost chipped to Hardik at mid-wicket, before eventually getting castled in the next over. Quickly climbing the ODI ladder in terms of out-thinking the batter, Siraj has already sidelined Mohammed Shami as a guaranteed starter in the XI and seems poised to enter the Bumrah territory.
No, wait. Actually scratch that. Not Bumrah. Forget entering the territory; no one currently even comes close to it. Lately a word has been overly used on social media, but Bumrah's slower ball to Mohammad Rizwan was indeed 'theatre'. It's the type Bumrah should frame and hang it on his living room wall. The ball to dismiss Rizwan took almost an eternity to reach him. It was cricket's answer to WWE and John Cena's 'You can't see me'. And before the world could come to terms with the genius of that slower-one, the Shadab delivery was equally unplayable. Time and again, Bumrah keeps proving that pitches and conditions are a myth. If this version of Bumrah is what India were waiting for to show up, they wouldn't mind not having him around for the last one year.
The final lingering piece in Rohit's era that reminds of the Kohli regimen his rigorous involvement as a leader. When Siraj was bleeding runs with the new ball, and later Hardik struggled with the same, Rohit was constantly in their ears but it made little difference. At that point, India needed to draw from the old playbook. Up stepped Kohli on both occasions, communicated his ideas and India were rewarded with a wicket instantly. Kohli may have moved on as captain, but his imprints in the team he helped build are alive and kicking.
Between Rohit being appointed captain and last month's Asia Cup, India lacked teeth and the killer instincts Kohli had fought tooth and nail to instil. but at last, with his grand return to form, Bumrah becoming a world-beater, Siraj shaping as the future and Kuldeep staging the daddy of all comebacks, this fully-strengthened Indian team appears near-unstoppable.
And Rishabh Pant isn't even back yet.
