India versus England, a T20 World Cup semifinal in Adelaide on Thursday. The format may be different, but one cannot help but cast his mind on the 1987 Reliance World Cup 50-over Cricket World Cup in Mumbai between the two countries.
England, particularly Graham Gooch and captain Mike Gatting, swept the then defending champions India out of the World Cup in the second semifinal at the Wankhede.
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Gooch scored 115 and Gatting 56 as they treated India’s left-arm spinners Ravi Shastri and Maninder Singh with disdain, employing the horizontal shots and picking boundaries behind square of the wicket.
Three years ago, during a visit to Mumbai, Gatting said that he engaged in reverse sweep a couple of times during his partnership with Gooch. Current players are so adept at sweeping the traditional way and also the reverse manner that they do not need any second invitation. And, the English batsmen, among whom Gatting was a pioneer of the reverse sweep, are more used to playing this.
Considering the shorter boundaries square of the wicket at the Adelaide Oval, the Indian slow bowlers Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel will have to alter their lengths to not allow the England batsmen sweep India away.
Former India left-arm spinner S Venkatapathi Raju told news18.com on Wednesday that Patel would be a key player for India against England in Adelaide on Thursday.
Raju said: “Axar is a good bowler. He is the mainstay among Indian spinners after Jadeja got injured. Besides, he is a brilliant bat and a good fielder. Adelaide being a spin-friendly pitch and the boundaries are smaller square of the wicket, the variation of pace is important, and he is very much capable of doing that. He will play an integral part, especially against England, who love to play the sweep.
“With his height, he has to vary his pace. Like Mitchell Santner (New Zealand left-arm spinner) showed by taking pace off the ball. The quicker you bowl, players come good with the reverse sweep. It’s how you vary your lengths. The fuller length deliveries are much better than length balls. Axar will hold the key.”
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Patel, in particular, has bowled less than 10 overs in the four matches he played – he missed the game against South Africa in Perth – took three wickets and emerged as the most expensive bowler of the tournament among Indian bowlers, going for 9.10 an over. His best figures were two for 18 against The Netherlands in Sydney.
Patel was the obvious candidate to replace the injured Ravindra Jadeja for the World Cup and admitted to making adjustments during an interaction with the media in the Mixed Zone after the match against The Netherlands. Patel, who is on his first T20 tournament in Australia, though he has played in ODIs in this country seven years ago, said: “The main difference between India and Australian wickets is the bounce. In India, a batter can’t easily rock on the back foot and negotiate the low bounce. In Australia, there isn’t much purchase from the track. Hitting someone through the line isn’t difficult while going on back foot.”
The Indian team’s think-tank of captain Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid have been backing the 28-year-old left-arm spinner to the hilt. Rohit said on the match eve on Wednesday in Adelaide that he was not at all worried about Patel and his performances so far in the World Cup.
He said: “To be honest, not really worried as such because he hardly got to bowl in this tournament. Except for that game against The Netherlands, he’s not bowled full overs of his quota, only because of the conditions. We’ve got four seamers who have particularly bowled all of their quotas, which means the spinners will not bowl their overs.
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“If you look at the conditions, except Sydney, all the grounds we’ve played on had a lot to offer to the seamers, which means we never got an opportunity to bowl Axar in the Power Play, which is his specialty. Honestly, we have not looked too much into his bowling and worried about his performance because we do understand his quality and in the series that we played before coming here bowled exceptionally well.”
Patel bowled just one over and went for 21 runs with Iftikhar Ahmed hitting for three sixes in the tense match at the MCG last month. Against Netherlands, he was unlucky as Dinesh Karthik missed a stumping to give Colin Ackermann a reprieve. He bowled his full quota of four overs against the Dutch.
While he bowled that crucial seventh over, his only over in that match against Bangladesh and went for only six runs, containing the dangerous-looking Litton Das, he sent down 3.2 overs and went for 40 against Zimbabwe, who had nothing to lose and was particularly treated badly by left-handed Ryan Burl, who once even reverse swept him for six.
Sharma was not really concerned about Patel going for more than nine runs an over. “Guys can have one bad tournament. It doesn’t mean that he’s out of form or not bowling well or not being able to execute plans. I thought the kind of space he’s in, for me that is important. And, when I talked to him, when I hear his thoughts, I pretty much feel that he’s in a good space, and that is exactly what we want when you’re about to play a game like that.”
Dravid defended Patel when he said after the last Super 12 match in Melbourne. “But, he’s had good games as well. Again, that’s the nature of this tournament, this format, which is such that you can get taken apart, especially on a day like today (against Zimbabwe) when they lost a lot of wickets there. They had nothing to lose. They could go after it and he’s bowled well as well. I think he bowled well in a couple of games and took a few wickets in those games as well. And I thought he bowled a very good over against Bangladesh just before the rain break. He bowled an over for six runs.
“It can happen in this format. I’m not necessarily concerned. Yes, he would have liked to have had a better day than today (Sunday). Having said that, he’s been someone who’s actually bowled really well for us over the last period of time.”
Axar has played only two T20Is against England, not taken any wicket and has gone for 9.40 runs per over against them. Adelaide, that has seen mixed results from left-arm spinners, could be the venue for Axar against England on
Thursday. Here’s a great chance for him to repose the faith Rohit and Dravid have on him.
It’s now or never for the spinner from Gujarat.
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