IND vs SA T20Is: Why India’s biggest strength is the biggest dilemma too

They quartet could still make the cut at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad in the final T20I on Friday, but will that be the uniform code thereafter when India aim to defend the T20 crown in the sub-continent?

There is the vicarious thrill in projecting this seam-spin quartet as the essential distinction between India and their major rivals at the World Cup, given the season’s top-order batting woes. It is a temptation that the India head coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Suryakumar Yadav have resisted across 20 matches this year.

There are definite upswings in fielding them to man the three distinct passages of play during high-pressure T20s.

No team heading into the World Cup can pose as potent a bowling foursome if India choose to. Kuldeep has purchased 90 career wickets with a strike every 11 deliveries, a feat matched by no bowler who has played at least 50 games. Arshdeep boasts the best strike rate (13.39) among all seamers with at least 100 T20I wickets. Chakaravarthy recently nudged 50 career wickets at an uncannily similar pace (13.35). For his body of work taking on the best head-on, Bumrah still holds up incredibly strong with a 17.14 strike rate and 6.42 economy unrivalled by any pacer among the top 10 T20I nations. Garnishing them is the skiddy Hardik Pandya, whose figures are no less at 100 wickets with a sub-20 SR.

Therein lies India’s finest blueprint to weaponise the white ball on potentially fresher pitches at the World Cup. It is also their spiralling dilemma.

Kuldeep-Varun conundrum

The single biggest reason why this particular four-bowler motion is unlikely to be passed in the long run is down to their one-dimensional abilities, lacking white-ball hitting capabilities, and a management persistent on having a sturdy willow wielder at number 8. It is a position rotated among a flurry of all-rounders and pacer Harshit Rana, who can give the ball a whack, in recent months.

While Rana has glimpsed his hit-the-deck routines and ability to temper fuller lengths with the new ball at decent clicks, it is unlikely that he displaces Arshdeep (India’s highest T20I wicket-taker) to forge an association with Bumrah up front. It would be a disservice to the two heroes of India’s 2024 World Cup win, who have a proven track record in T20 Powerplays and death overs.

Deliberations will then boil down to the contrasts in the magic of Kuldeep’s left-arm wrist spin and Chakaravarthy’s mystery. Their union is a no-brainer on drier strips that were the norm in the United Arab Emirates in the Champions Trophy and the T20 Asia Cup earlier this year.

India wouldn’t need to spend their four golden tokens together for the majority of the T20 World Cup group stage against lower-ranked nations. The spin-friendly Colombo encounter against Pakistan will also bear both Kuldeep and Chakaravarthy without a speck of doubt. But even India’s probable Super 8 venues in Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Chennai have thrown up capricious pitches, swaying between scoring extremes.

If tacky pitches enter the picture, the Kuldeep-Chakaravarthy equation overshadows that of Bumrah-Arshdeep as the crux of the attack. When they don’t, Chakaravarthy will stand as the first-choice spinner for his sustained variety and control even on dewy nights and flatter pitches, alongside spin all-rounder Axar Patel.

The games India have unified Kuldeep and Chakaravarthy in so far reveal the management’s mantra. In eight completed matches this year with them on the XI, India won seven, all on the slow UAE pitches in the Asia Cup.

The one defeat in Melbourne in October— the only game India have lost with both spinners plus Bumrah in the side—exaggerated India’s diffidence in fielding them together. Only one of India’s top-six batters nudged double-digit scores that day at the MCG against the Aussies, neutralising any cushion from the extra No. 8 batter. Bumrah, Kuldeep and Chakaravarthy would still cut Australia’s 127-run chase down by six wickets.

Spin legend R Ashwin isn’t one who will buy into that No.8 logic. “The team management is worried about the batting somewhere deep inside their head. I don’t know what that worry is because we have been in fabulous form in T20 cricket,” he said on his YouTube channel.

“Play your best bowlers. You will lose sometimes because it is a high-risk game. You go into the World Cup with the best bowling attack, and then if you lose, you lose. But put the best men in the park.”