Despite beating Oman in the Asia Cup, Indiaโs performance raised concerns. With most senior players playing, India struggled both with bat and ball. Poor bowling strategies and lacklustre batting exposed weaknesses in bench strength and overall planning.
Over the past few years, one thing that was said again and again was that India can even field a second-class team and still compete in international cricket. While it can be true on many occasions, but India failed to prove that against Oman in the ongoing Asia Cup. The Men in Blue gave a break to Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy from the match, but other than that, all the regular players featured in the clash.
Despite so, the Men in Blue were put to the test by Oman. Opener Abhishek Sharma looked impressive at the top of the order, scoring 38 runs off 15 balls, but after that, it was a slow walk. Sanju Samson did score a half-century, but interestingly, it was his slowest in T20I cricket history. The batting order was heavily altered as Suryakumar didnโt bat at all, while Tilak Varma featured at seven.
Casual approach from India could have cost them the game
Nevertheless, India posted 188 runs on the board, which should have been enough against an associate nation. However, even with the ball, Suryakumar wanted to experiment with things and that put India in trouble in the end. Usually, India bowled a spinner in the powerplay in every game, but against Oman, all the pacers were given a chance in the first six overs. In the middle overs, even Abhishek and Tilak were handed the ball, who proved expensive.
India never looked like it was going for the glory and that could have cost them the match. Towards the end, even the main bowlers such as Kuldeep Yadav and Arshdeep Singh went for runs, which is not a good sign for Indian cricket.ย
Hence, the talk about bench strength may just look like a mirage at the moment. Even though one may argue that India have experimented several things in the match, but at the end of the day, all the senior cricketers, barring Bumrah, were available in the match and in a game, where 14 overs were bowled by the main bowlers, the team should have conceded less against an associate team, who looked highly impressive in the middle.ย