novaBBS - uk.sport.cricket - Re: India lost to the conditions, but could they have been braver with the bat?

Good analysis of World Cup 2023.

Toss did make a huge difference BUT Indian think tank MISREAD the Pitch
and also got their THOUGHT PROCESS WRONG of wanting to bat first when
the recent record of Ahmedabad pitch clearly showing batting becoming
EASIER for chasing team right from the Opener of England vs NZ match.

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https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/icc-cricket-world-cup-2023-final-india-lost-to-the-conditions-but-could-they-have-been-braver-with-the-bat-1409782

India lost to the conditions, but could they have been braver with the bat?

As they come to terms with another World Cup heartbreak, India may
wonder if they could have done more to offset the disadvantage of dew

Rohit Sharma looked like he was trying to hold back tears. Mohammed
Siraj couldn't. Jasprit Bumrah, who doesn't let results sway his
emotions, consoled him. KL Rahul sank to his knees. Virat Kohli hid his
face in his cap. Mohammed Shami walked back dejected. The spirit had
left them.

It hurts. The ones who will not play another World Cup will be hurting
even more. The morning after will be even worse. It is good they have
their families with them. There's more to life than a World Cup. They
will need that reinforced come Monday morning when there is no training
to go to. The ones who don't have families with them will need their
team-mates to do the reinforcing for them.

That is the cruel nature of a league-knockout hybrid format. It will
hurt India more than any team knocked out earlier in the tournament.
That's the price you pay: to fight for the biggest joy, you must risk
the biggest heartbreak. It will hurt them more than it can hurt anyone
on the outside.

All those runs and wickets will feel empty just like the stands emptied
by people who had already moved onto more mundane things like avoiding
traffic jams. All the joy and the noise they had bathed in for a
month-and-a-half suddenly gave way to a hollow hum. Rohit scored more
runs than any captain ever has in one tournament. Kohli scored more than
any batter ever has. Shami was the highest wicket-taker despite not
playing four matches. These facts mean nothing to them in the moment.

However, in a cricket world with so much professionalism, with the top
three sides having equal access to knowledge, facilities, technology and
talent, it is rare that you can beat the conditions. In the league match
against Australia, India were on the right side of the conditions. In
the final, they lost to the conditions.
Will finishing as the World Cup's highest run-getter offer Virat Kohli
any consolation for the heartbreak of the final?

An example of how much the pitch changed is how often Marnus Labuschagne
dabbed the ball gently behind squares for singles; those easy singles
hadn't been available to India. The pitch had been so slow in the
afternoon that there was risk involved in manipulating the bat face to
pick up singles once the field spread out and the ball became old. Kohli
was dismissed in exactly this manner, inside-edging Pat Cummins onto his
stumps.

If Rohit's words at the toss - he said he would have batted first had he
won it - actually reflected the team management's thoughts (sometimes a
captain's words can be just a front), it would be fair to say India
misread the conditions. That didn't matter because Australia won the
toss, and they decided to play a different game.

India expected the pitch to keep getting slower and offer more turn,
which happened in the Kolkata semi-final. They hoped they could
capitalise on the brittleness of Australia's chasing.

Australia went by recent trends in Ahmedabad. During this World Cup,
batting has consistently become easier under the lights in Ahmedabad.
They banked on the pattern continuing, and expected a drier-than-usual
pitch to be at its most difficult in the afternoon. They wanted to
exploit India's relative weakness on slow pitches.

The second ball he faced from Josh Hazlewood, who had dismissed him in
these teams' league meeting, Rohit charged at him and crashed him
through the covers for four. Rohit was playing the World Cup final like
it should have been: just another game. All through the tournament, he
had made it easy for India's middle order by scoring quicker than anyone
else in the powerplay.

It was even more important that Rohit did it here. Kohli got off to a
great start too. Having seen Shubman Gill get out early, Kohli stuck to
the team plan and ditched the risk-free game that had brought him
700-plus runs in the tournament. He took a risk off the ninth ball he
faced, dragging Mitchell Starc over wide mid-on. It wasn't a perfect
shot, but Kohli knew he needed to take that chance during the powerplay.

With the ball, India had their early plans spot-on. They got Shami to
open the bowling because of his superior numbers against left-hand
batters. They would have been pleasantly surprised by the help Bumrah
and Shami got but that zip and that movement came at a cost. In the
evening, as it most noticeably happened for New Zealand against England
in the tournament-opener, the pitch had quickened up, and the ball
gripped much less.

Once Australia weathered the early storm, once the movement died down,
only a genius delivery from Bumrah, a final reminder of the magic India
have created through this tournament, got them a wicket, that of Steven
Smith with a viciously dipping slower one. The rest of the story we have
heard before in many a chase in India. Would India have won at the
Wankhede 12 years ago had there been no dew?

There will of course be a review within the team. Perhaps Rahul could
have been braver through the middle overs. Kohli has the game to keep
scoring at the strike rate of 80 to 90 without having to hit boundaries.
Kohli got a delivery that lifted on that slow pitch and got big on him.
On another day the inside edge could have run past the leg stump. Not in
this final.

Others have to take risks. It is no rocket science why Rahul didn't take
risks. India's batting is shallow. I have asked the coaches on more than
one occasion at press conferences how the batters have reacted to India
not having any batting after No. 7. Particularly how their outlook to
risk has changed. The coaches have maintained that they don't even want
to think about it because the top seven are good enough to do the job.
It didn't look like that at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.

They will look back at just the nine boundary attempts in 180 legal
balls in the middle overs and wonder if that was sufficient. It meant
India scored just four boundaries outside the powerplay, the
joint-lowest in any ODI since 2005. On a slower pitch bowlers do have a
larger margin for error, but only India can answer if they couldn't have
tried to push the bowlers off their lengths a little harder.

It is not like no batting lower down the order was a selection error.
What Shardul Thakur brings at No. 8 is often notional. There is no
reason to believe Siraj doesn't offset that notional depth with what he
brings with the ball as compared to Thakur. The problem is, none of
India's first-choice bowlers bat as well as even, say, Starc and Pat
Cummins.

You might look back and say the India fast bowlers could have bowled
more cutters, perhaps the spinners could have gone slower in the air to
try to get the ball to turn because the pitch had something it in it not
too much earlier. They could have perhaps trusted Suryakumar Yadav more
and not promoted Ravindra Jadeja to face a poor match-up against spin,
as a result of which overs 30 to 36 featured no intent at all.

However, these are marginal issues. Had Rahul taken more risks, they
might have come off but we also know the flip side of it. The p-layers
will not say it, but the change in the conditions from afternoon to
evening was the biggest deciding factor. It doesn't make them chokers or
mentally less strong or less courageous. They have played so much
cricket that they know they just have to roll with it.

And yet it will be the toughest thing for them to do. They have known
this feeling before, but it never gets easier. And this time they came
closer than ever since 2011. To fight for the biggest joy, you must risk
the biggest heartbreak.

Subject	Author
India lost to the conditions, but could they have been braver with	FBInCIAnNSATerroristSlayer
Re: India lost to the conditions, but could they have been braver with the bat?	John Hall

No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.

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