India’s winning fire and ice combination
It’s no coincidence that the most consistent team of the ICC World Twenty20 2014 has the two most consistent performers, one each with bat and ball, of the competition.
Inasmuch as statistics leave themselves open to convenient interpretation, these figures tell a tale of their own. Virat Kohli is the leading run-scorer at the World T20, sitting atop the pile with 242 runs from five innings. He has been around till the end to ensure victory three out of those five times, has scored his runs at 128.04 per 100 balls faced, and while he has struck 19 fours and six sixes, his game isn’t based only around boundary-hitting.
R Ashwin is not the highest wicket-taker, yet. The off-spinner had a quiet start to the tournament with just one stick from his first two bowls, but since then, he has been on a roll. His last three matches have brought him two, four and three wickets respectively. With 10 scalps from five games, Ashwin is the joint third best in the wickets charts. He has also fused wicket-taking with outstanding economy – a wicket every 11.6 deliveries, and an economy rate of 4.91 runs per over despite bowling a fair few of his 19.2 overs inside the Power Play. Of all those who have taken more than six wickets, Samuel Badree is a distant second when it comes to economy, going at 5.65 to the over. Ashwin is as much the leader of the bowling group as Kohli is of the batting pack.
One of the most difficult attributes to maintain in T20 cricket is consistency. Given the very nature of the format, it is almost impossible to turn up day after day and maintain high standards, sometimes through no fault of yours. From a batting standpoint, you might walk in after a slow start and may be needed to get on with it from ball one. From a bowling perspective, especially when you are bowling inside the first six overs, it is easy to lose shape, balance, control and heart when batsmen, armed with heavy bats and three strokes to every delivery, decide it is time to show who the boss is.
To have maintained such extraordinary standards over such a long time therefore requires not just plenty of skill, but also a strong mind and the ability to read situations. India is fortunate that in each department, it has a lead player who is intelligent enough to suss up conditions and game situations, and who is able enough to translate his understanding of the requirements of the team into the kind of performances that have been crucial to India’s unbeaten run in a tournament it certainly didn’t begin as overwhelming favourite.
Such is the power of perception that Kohli and Ashwin have always found themselves on opposite ends of the popularity spectrum. Kohli is the one who can do no wrong – and to be fair, there actually is very little he has done wrong. He is the in-your-face, heart-on-his-sleeve competitor prone to fits of emotion; when you see him on a cricket field, it instantly hits you that here is a man who hates losing.
Ashwin, on the other hand, has for long been the man who can do little right – remember, we are talking perception. He came in to the national side at the expense of Harbhajan Singh, the colourful off-spinner with a plethora of sympathisers who desperately hunted for positives even when it was obvious that the Turbanator wasn’t quite the incisive force he had been for more than a decade. Every Ashwin success story was dismissed as having been earned at home. Not even the fact that he became the quickest Indian to 100 Test wickets earned him plaudits. Instead, his ‘poor’ away Test record has been used against him, never mind that he has only played four Tests overseas and three of them in Australia in 2011-12 when India was taking a fearful pounding.
That he plays for Chennai Super Kings, seemingly everyone’s favourite whipping boys for a while now, has been used as another stick to beat him with. And when he arrives at press conferences and speaks his mind, the very same people who complain about inane press-dos delve deep to unearth ‘offensive’ comments. Not making any comparisons here, but Anil Kumble had once said how both he and Sachin Tendulkar always had things to prove – Tendulkar to prove people right that he was born to play cricket and would own all batting records, Kumble to prove those people wrong who believed he wasn’t cut out for international cricket. Swap Kumble for Ashwin and Tendulkar for Kohli, and you won’t be far off the mark.
As India heads into Sunday’s (April 6) final against Sri Lanka and seeks a second World T20 crown to go with a brace of 50-over World Cups and a pair of Champions Trophy titles, the aggressive man from Delhi with the studs and the tattoos, and the less athletic prototype of a thinking southern Indian cricketer will continue to remain the cynosure. Both men have had great success against Sri Lanka, Kohli more so than Ashwin, but that is no guarantee for another satisfying day in office. After his heroics in the semifinal against South Africa, Kohli spoke of the need to keep desperation out of the game as he distinguished between want to and have to, another clear indication of the thought process that has made him the batsmen he is.
“It is important not to get too excited. It’s important to stay in that nice, calm zone,” Kohli reiterated. “We will just come out on the day of the final, play good cricket and see what happens. It’s not about thinking about the expectations or the pressures, that we have to win this cup. Obviously we would love to win this cup, we eagerly want to but when you say you have to, then you are putting yourself under pressure. Wanting to win is good and staying in that calm space – you focus on the process and the results follow. This confidence we can certainly take into the finals.
“But we don’t want to be too desperate. We know how strong Sri Lanka are and we respect that. We will try to play to our level and our style. We want the result to go our way but for that, we have to play good cricket for 40 overs and not be too desperate. The last time we won the World Cup (2007 World T20), I wasn’t a part of it. Now we have reached the finals, then I was watching from home. It felt good seeing it, it was exciting to see India win. Now I will try to experience it on Sunday.”
Like Kohli, Ashwin is also intelligent enough to understand that while nothing that happens in the final will take away what they has been achieved thus far in the competition, there will be a hollow ring to it all if Mahendra Singh Dhoni doesn’t hold up the trophy at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium on Sunday night. India is fortunate to have both fire at the top of the batting tree and ice at the head of the bowling order. But hang on, don’t they say something about making your own luck?
