What is within the control of Mahendra Singh Dhoni's young band is to pull their socks up and gird their loins for two bone-crunching matches, against England on Wednesday and hosts South Africa the following day, if they are not to make an early exit from the Twenty20 World Cup. Their inability to finish off New Zealand at the Wanderers on Sunday might yet come back to haunt the Indians, but this is no time to cry over spilt milk.
Advantage
India's advantage lies in the fact that they will play the last two Super Eight matches of Group E. By the time they take the field against England on Wednesday evening, New Zealand will have completed their league engagements with a game against the Proteas in the afternoon. Not that that really is much consolation, because all said and done, India will need to win their next two matches to assure themselves of a semifinal slot. It was at Kingsmead that, four and a half years ago, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid with the bat, and Javagal Srinath and more tellingly Ashish Nehra with the ball, powered the Indians to a commanding triumph over England in the 2003 World Cup.
Confidence
Not one of that quartet will be seen in action on the morrow for various reasons, but quite a few others that did play on that day are still around, and will seek to infuse some confidence in the ranks.
If India seek to draw inspiration from an evening more than 50 months old, England don't have to look beyond ten days back to derive confidence. Their spectacular seven-wicket triumph at Lord's on September 8 carried them to a famous 4-3 victory in a seven-match one-day series, but both teams wear a vastly different look for a version that is gradually gathering steam as the contests become tighter and the pressure intense.
England have been the unqualified failures of this World Cup so far. Paul Collingwood's men arrived here one of the stronger favourites because of the squad's exposure to domestic Twenty20 cricket.
Brink of elimination
First Australia, then South Africa and now New Zealand have firmly put them in their place, pushing them to the brink of elimination. Should South Africa defeat New Zealand on Wednesday afternoon, England will already have been booted out before taking the field later in the evening, though that is unlikely to make India's task any easier.
Wednesday will pose a stern test of Dhoni's captaincy skills. The Jharkhandi will take heart from being appointed the national one-day skipper, but he will be aware that, after a poor captaincy day at the Wanderers, he will be under great scrutiny. Dhoni is likely to be a little more conservative with his bowling changes and changes to the batting order — why he came ahead of Yuvraj Singh will forever remain a mystery — though he will contemplate bringing Piyush Chawla into the eleven, perhaps at the expense of Ajit Agarkar.
The little leggie had given an excellent account of himself in the one-dayers in England, and while that will tempt the team management into giving him a go here, they will have to take into account the fact that Kingsmead, particularly under lights, is more a pacers' haven than a spin-friendly proposition.