India vs Australia WTC Final Loading

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Another WTC Final on the cards for India



 

Team India might play two back to back WTC finals in two cycles. Currently we are the 2nd position in the points table of WTC and the last series is at home that’s make our case even more-stronger. There are two other contenders along with us, Australia and South Africa. Our last series will be against Australia in February-March, which is termed as Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT).

 

We are currently placed at no.2 with Australia above us and South Africa behind. But we have to now win the home series and as well as hoping for few results of South Africa games to go in favor for us. There is a series between Australia and South Africa is happening right now, and after this Australia will be up against us, whereas South Africa will play to West Indies.

 

There are certain permutations and combinations are there on which the two top teams will be decided. But the basic and very simple calculation is, the position where currently Australia & India are, they are mostly going to finish there and might play the WTC final at Oval in June next year.

 

India escaped from a humiliation defeat:-

Indian test team have not performed up to expectations in this year. We started the year with a series loss against South Africa at their home, in which we were favorites and 1-0 up after first game. That was truly the best ever chance for us to create history in South Africa, but we failed to do that. Our next big assignment was one-of test in England, which was a remainder game of previous 2021 series.

 

We were 2-1, coming to the game and on the verge of making history there, but again we failed to the occasion. We lost back to back 3 tests in away conditions, that to be while defending a total in 4th innings. We draw the series 2-2 there and missed another chance in a trot. However, we have managed to win the remaining 4 games that we played in our Asian conditions.

 

We beat Sri Lanka by 2-0 at home and towards the end now, we have beaten Bangladesh at their home. So, overall, we have won 4 tests out of 7 we played this year. It is not the case that, these 4 games were less important, but 3 games we lost, that could have made history for us.

 

This year our Cricket have been so poor, and there are plenty of questions at the end of the year. And the last game, where we win, still the way it came, that reflects our journey this year. Chasing 145 in 4th innings with almost 7 sessions remaining, we are once 7 down under 80 runs and at a tricky situation at our Indian Sub-continent.

 

It was determination from young Shreyas Iyer and composer from two quality all-rounders, Axar Patel and R Ashwin, who hold the pressure and got the job done. Otherwise it could have been pathetic and more humiliating than 36 all-out in Adelaide. And in context of WTC, this 12 points are more valuable. Tough we got the result at the end, but our test team has not looked that confident or strong in last one year, especially against quality teams.





What is wrong with us in Tests?

There was time during Virat kohli’s captaincy tenure we ruled test Cricket everywhere. And are at the top during that period. Currently, we are also at a stable position and continuing that dominance at the top, but truly there is significantly a downfall or problem in our side post 2021 T20 WC.


Record says we have played as much as 10 tests in this period while we have win 6 tests, lost 3 and drawn 1. This is obviously a decent record, but those 3 losses were came away from home, where we were favorites. And the funny part is that total 5 different captains laid the team in these games.

 

KL Rahul-3 Matches (SA-1, BAN-2)

Virat Kohli-3 Matches (NZ-1, SA-2)  

Rohit Sharma-2 Matches (SL-2)

Ajinkya Rahane-1 Match (NZ-1)

Jasprit Bumrah-1 Match (Eng-1)

 

The results looked ok, but we lost those most important games. But more importantly our main problem is our main batters have been out of form since 2020.

 

Stats of our top 4 played in Ban Series in last 3 years:-

KL Rahul averaging around 33

Shubman Gill averaging around 32

Cheteswar Pujara averaging around 30

Virat Kohli Averaging around 26

 

Other players like- Rahane, Vihari, Mayank, etc. are got dropped because of more bad form than the above mentioned. Only few batters who are in good form in this time are – Rishabh, Rohit and Iyer, among the all-rounders Jadeja, Ashwin, Axar and Sundar. Rohit and Jadeja haven’t played much games this year due to injury and Iyer has just started his test carrier. So basically it is Pant with our lower order batter are saving us from disasters.

 

So with BGT in next two months we will be hoping some heavy calls to be made or still team management will back their main and key players. Ideally it will be better to stay with these important players in a heavy pressure series, and if any transition to be made or any tough calls to be made that should only happen post the WTC cycle.  

 

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