MS Dhoni, who always tends to wear a poker face and is usually frugal with his words on cricket, broke character at an event when he was asked about India’s chances in the T20 World Cup. His eyes widened as he ominously declared, “It’s one of the most dangerous teams. Everything that is needed in a good team, they have it.”Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!It’s tough to maintain consistency in a format as fickle as T20 cricket. Yet, this Indian team has reached the tournament with an aura of invincibility. Since the inception of this tournament, only Australia in 2007 and England in 2022 went in as overwhelming favourites. Only England managed to live up to the billing, lifting the trophy at the MCG, though their cricket wobbled soon after. That makes India the first defending T20 champions to take the field still head and shoulders above the rest, much like Australia’s ODI teams in the first decade of the 21st century.
The process of forming this formidable and immaculately balanced unit has been a thorough one. It has often bordered on the ruthless, like when the team management and selectors decided that vice-captain Shubman Gill’s style of play— and indifferent form — was disturbing the team’s balance and axed him from the squad.T20 cricket dictates a certain degree of premeditation. It leaves barely any room for reacting on the fly. ‘Flexibility’ soon became the buzzword, so much so that it began to look whimsical during the home series against South Africa in Dec. Captain Suryakumar Yadav preferred to bat behind Axar Patel and Shivam Dube. Gill and Surya’s dip in form coincided, leaving the management desperate to compensate through eccentric moves. The nerves were obvious. Suddenly, playing moderately high-scoring games became the safer zone — a strategy that was outright in defiance of head coach Gautam Gambhir’s core principles.The feisty side of Gambhir’s character was never going to let him enter the tournament by abandoning those principles. The team management pivoted before New Zealand arrived for the T20I series last month. India traded Gill’s conservative approach at the top for Ishan Kishan’s belligerence, which instantly clicked. The pieces fell into place seamlessly. It didn’t matter that Tilak Varma was still recovering from abdominal surgery, that new vice-captain Axar missed a few games due to an index finger injury or that Washington Sundar’s availability for the World Cup remained uncertain.The obsession with a left/right combination has been conveniently chucked out of the window. Batters batted in well-defined roles. There was no need for a major shuffle in the batting order. Specialists are back in vogue. The first indication was bringing Rinku Singh back into the mix. The allrounders came in to bat only from No. 5 and bowled after the specialist bowlers had done their job. India opted for a specialist spinner in Ravi Bishnoi to fill in for allrounder Washington. They have found flexibility within a stable environment. The idea is simple: score big runs and let world-class bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Arshdeep Singh and Kuldeep Yadav rein in the opposition batting even on the flattest of decks.This T20I team has been in the making since Gambhir took over as head coach. He has enjoyed the most authority in this format compared to the other two formats. He has run experiments over the past 18 months with a clear vision: build a team that thrives on aggression. He has now arrived at a combination that appears stronger than the World Cup-winning team of 2024.There’s a calm in the camp that could have the opposition shaking in their boots. The fact that Varma has only just rejoined the team, and that Washington’s recovery status remains a mystery, doesn’t seem to perturb the management. They are in a space where they don’t lose sleep over finding a like-for-like replacement for Washington should he fail to get fit during the tournament. In that case, Bishnoi retaining his place won’t be a surprise.Axar did bat at No. 5 in the warm-up match against South Africa on Wednesday. That had more to do with giving him time at the crease. But one doesn’t really see the need for him to bat so high when India begin their campaign on Saturday. Harshit Rana’s emergence as a capable lower-order hitter at No. 8 has given the team management the luxury of fielding more specialist bowlers. Like Dhoni said, the team has everything going for it — form, combination and familiar conditions. But he also warned that dew, and one off day at a crucial time, could stop this juggernaut. It’s India’s World Cup to lose.
