T20 World Cup: India faces Pakistan in the first test
T20 World Cup: Before the ‘challenging’ Super 12 opener at the MCG on Sunday, skipper Rohit Sharma bats for a balance between instinct and matchup focus.
T20 World Cup: Numbers do not always tell the whole story. As in India, they can be manipulated to project positive records and win-loss ratios. However, more than a decade of bilateral superiority cannot compensate for an empty World Cup shelf. This was not supposed to happen. The 2007 T20 World Cup victory came by chance, but by the time MS Dhoni’s India won the 2011 ODI World Cup at home, the Indian Premier League had become synonymous with Indian cricket for three years. New standards were being established, and rules were being rewritten.
India produced finishers, wicketkeeper-batters, slog-over specialists, and 19th-over bowlers over the next few years. However, in more than a decade, they have not been able to integrate a World Cup-winning team.
It’s a wake-up call bound to mess with a group’s psyche.
And it doesn’t help when Pakistan keeps resurfacing as the first team to put their newfound mettle to the test. The clock has been reset following last year’s World Cup group-stage exit, but playing Pakistan remains a constant. Pressure? Captain Rohit Sharma sees it as more of a test. “Yeah, look, I don’t want to use the word “pressure” because the pressure is constant,” he said at a press conference on Saturday in Washington. “It’s never going to change.”
“It’s just that I believe it was ‘on that particular day.'” If you’re good enough on that particular day, you’ll beat any opposition, take the win, and go home. That is precisely what has occurred over the last several years. Pakistan performed admirably in the previous World Cup. They defeated us. They performed admirably in the Asia Cup. We were strong, but we won the first game while they won the second.”
Aside from the outcome of this game, there is a sense of improbability surrounding India’s Cup chances. The bowling has visible gaps, and the batting is still reeling from a decade of experiments.
