Spin is beginning to exert a significant influence on this T20 World Cup, and India have already acknowledged their issues against it. They are acutely aware that they have not yet replicated the explosive powerplay performances that defined their build-up to the tournament.Aiden Markram spent more time honing his bowling than his batting, operating for an extended spell from around the wicket and targeting the rough patches on the practice strips. He bowled for a good length of time to South Africa’s consultant coach Albie Morkel, who tried his best to unsettle Markram, making room and lofting inside-out, stepping outside the line to whisk him behind square, and tonking good-length deliveries gun-barrel straight. This is the kind of challenge Markram could face against India’s predominantly left-handed top order.
An hour later, the same theme was evident in India’s nets. A battery of net offspinners, alongside Varun Chakravarthy and Washington Sundar, tested the left-handers relentlessly. Tilak Varma was first in, followed by Ishan Kishan and Rinku Singh, before the other batters had a crack.
A few strips to their right, head coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Suryakumar Yadav spent considerable time studying the surface, crouching, prodding, knocking, and exchanging notes. The fast bowlers were largely bystanders through the first half of training, running gentle laps around the outfield or going through boundary-catching drills.
The most prominent member of India’s left-handed contingent, Abhishek Sharma, was last in at the nets. It was notable that he looked to hit with a straight bat while going over the top against spin, and avoided the kind of cross-batted shot that cost him his wicket against Netherlands’ Aryan Dutt on Wednesday.
Aiden Markram bowled more than he batted during South Africa’s training session•ICC/Getty Images
Abhishek is yet to get off the mark after three innings in this tournament, and has been out twice to offspin. These dismissals have heightened the scrutiny around India’s match-up against spin, and bowling coach Morne Morkel – Albie’s brother – was asked about how they plan to go about it in the Super Eights.
“Yes, there’s a blueprint,” Morkel said. “Plan A is we want to take spin on. We want to put them [spinners] under pressure. But I think the smart way is also to sum up the conditions and play those moments quite well. To be honest, I think on the surfaces we’ve played so far, it wasn’t the easiest wickets to hit pace-off balls. We tried that in Mumbai [against USA], found ourselves in trouble.”
Oppositions at this World Cup have done an excellent job of stifling India post-powerplay, dragging their lengths back and forcing India’s batters to generate all the power. India have managed a scoring rate of 7.12 from overs 7 to 10 so far in this tournament, which puts them third from bottom among the Super Eights teams. South Africa top this list with a scoring rate of 10.37.
India pride themselves on sustaining their momentum through the early middle overs – across their last two bilateral series against New Zealand and South Africa, they went at 8.93 in this phase. Morkel suggested that conditions and situations have prevented from doing this at this World Cup.”
“I think the important thing is that we know we can always… If we have some sort of platform, we can catch up at the back end. And credit to the team, yes, we maybe haven’t dominated spin as we would have liked. But that’s around the corner on a surface that we find our flow [on].”
He pointed out that India, for all their middle-overs issues, have still been able to finish their innings strongly.
“Like I said earlier, that [middle-overs acceleration] will happen,” Morkel said. “But I think the good thing for me is that we are scoring well in those periods. And we’re still posting 190 and 200 on the board, which with our bowling unit, we know it will give us a great opportunity to defend.
“In saying that, I think the conversation in the dressing room was to play that low phase slightly better. And then from there, we can reset and say, ‘Okay, listen, we’re going to pull the trigger at a certain point, whatever over that might be. And then the guys will kick on. But give us that base to launch from.'”
While the contest between spin and India’s largely left-handed top order has been going one way so far, Morkel believes there’s plenty of time for the trend to reverse.
“We were going to be heavy with left-handers,” he said. “But if you look at those left-handers, they are aggressive players. I think for those batters, bowlers will have sleepless nights bowling to them. That’s the way we’re set up at the moment. I do feel once we get going again, we find that flow that we’re going to put bowling units under a lot of pressure.
“So yes, I’m pretty sure they’re going to do a lot of planning. They’ll think of ways to take the ball away from the left-handers up front. But at the end of the day, I think we’ve got enough skill there with those guys to come up and take those challenges on.”
Shashank Kishore is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo
