The white ball gives India happy vibes. No lateral movement, no Scott Boland teeing himself up to unleash those grenades outside the off-stump, and no Tim Southee to probe hesitant bats. When it’s white ball, life is kind to India.
India play Bangladesh in their Champions League opener today, a chance to reset themselves after a forgettable period of eight months. Few would have expected the deep pits the team has sunk into after the heady scenes in the 2024 T20 World Cup. The Test series loss in Australia may have been a foregone conclusion but the 3-0 sweep by New Zealand at home squeezed the soul out of Indian cricket.
The recurrent theme in all these defeats has been the diminishing returns by the old guards, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. That criticism has significantly reduced since India’s recent ODI series against England where they routed the visitors 3-0.
The skipper sounded upbeat about India hitting the right notes just in time. “We play this tournament as we’ve played any other tournament, whether it’s an ICC event or any other series we play for India. Playing for India means a lot to all of us. I think there is enough quality, depth, and experience in the team for us to come here quite confident and be confident about what we want to do here. Then we will see how it goes,” Rohit said.
“Against England, we played the brand and the ethics of the team that we wanted to. When you’re playing a series before an ICC tournament, you want to tick off certain boxes, and I thought we ticked off those boxes and played very good cricket,” he added.
Yes, the Champions Trophy is a grander stage, especially when a team involved is called Pakistan.
Back to today’s match, India needn’t be told that Bangladesh pose a significant challenge in the subcontinent.
With Jasprit Bumrah absence diminishing India’s pace attack, India are leaning on spin, with Varun Chakravarthy positioned as a key player. Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, and Washington Sundar also provide essential batting options across the order.
“They are two spinners and three all-rounders. I am not looking at them as five spinners. Those three guys can bat and bowl. The rest of the teams have fast-bowling all-rounders. You don’t ask them why they have six fast bowlers,” the Indian skipper said. ”We work on our strengths and build our team around it. Axar Patel and Washington Sundar give us a different dimension to our squad. They give us a lot of depth. That’s why we wanted to try and bring players who have two skills rather than just one.”
Historically, India has triumphed over Bangladesh in 32 out of 41 encounters, losing only eight since their first match in 1988. They played to a no-result once, back in 2014. In the Champions Trophy, India defeated Bangladesh by nine wickets in the semi-finals of the 2017 edition at Edgbaston in Birmingham.
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