Openers' poor form a major worry for India

Rohit, Dhawan need to fire soon

The mood in the country has been euphoric following India’s progress to the World T20 semifinal and the Virat Kohli mania has been spreading like wild fire.

The foreign media has been quick to hail him as a worthy replacement for the great Sachin Tendulkar, the batsman the entire country pinned its hope on for the longest of time before the likes of Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, among others, emerged as match winners on their own. While it’s good news that Kohli has developed into a rightful heir to the Little Master, not unlike the initial decade of Tendulkar’s career there appears to be over dependence on one batsman.

The scenario has never been as stark as it has been in this World T20. Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have been far from encouraging at the top of the order while Suresh Raina hasn’t done much to silence his critics. Though he has played a couple of useful cameos, Yuvraj Singh hasn’t looked convincing. And the injury to his left ankle now threatens to put an end to his international career. Only skipper MS Dhoni, among specialist batsmen, has managed to hold his own on what have been difficult pitches to bat on.

In the four matches, the combined amount of runs managed by Rohit (45), Dhawan (43), Yuvraj (52) and Raina (41) is less than Kohli’s aggregate of 184 runs in four innings. These stats put in perspective the reliance of India on Kohli, especially in the last few weeks. India have been particularly hit hard by the failures of their openers. It is no secret that teams’ successful legacies are intricately related to how well their openers have performed.

India have greatly been benefitted by Rohit and Dhawan in the not too distant past. With them going cold, India’s batting has been held together by Kohli’s individual brilliance but there is only so much one man can do.

Since the three-match bilateral series against Sri Lanka in early February, Rohit has just one score of fifty (83 against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup opener) with his next best being 39 (against UAE); his sequence of scores for the last 12 matches thus read – 0, 43, 13, 83, 0, 15, 39, 1, 5, 10, 18 and 12. His tally of 239 runs from 12 matches at an average of 19.91 and a strike rate of 116.01 pale compared to his career average of 30.46 and strike rate of 126.54.

His partner Dhawan’s record during the same period is no better. In 11 matches, stretching from the Sri Lanka series, the left-hander has scores of 9, 51, 46 n.o., 2, 1, 16 n.o., 60, 1, 6, 23 and 13. His average (25.33) and strike rate (110.14) aren’t the numbers that justify his quality of batting.

Their inconsistent performances at the top has meant that India have had just three good starts in the last 11 matches. Only once in the 11 matches, have they managed to play out the power play overs without any damage which means that Kohli, their best batsman, has on, 10 occassions, walked out to bat during field restrictions. Agreed, they have had to encounter some testy conditions both in the Asia Cup in Dhaka, where seaming conditions made life difficult for the batsmen in general and openers in particular, and in World T20 where slow turning tracks haven’t allowed them to express themselves freely.

Dhoni had spoken of the necessity to give an extended run to the batsmen after the Pakistan match in Kolkata but it’s about time Rohit and Dhawan put their hand up and performed.

In Australia both of them appeared unstoppable on absolute shirt fronts but have struggled to get going on pitches that have seamed and turned. While it would be harsh to term the two “flat-track bullies”, questions are bound to arise if they are good enough to tackle different conditions.