As pitches in Dubai seem to be getting slower with each outing, all eyes are on the Indian spinners. However, for India to go the distance a lot is riding on the batting unit, which so far has adapted exceptionally to the sort of tracks that have been their biggest undoing in recent times.
With a century each to Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli, they have two in-form batsmen in the top three to go with Rohit Sharma to provide rapid starts. In the middle overs where they need to be flexible with their approach against spinners, they have a solid middle-order which includes an enforcer in Shreyas Iyer and two busy players in Axar Patel and KL Rahul before the finishing job is handed over to Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja.
This is as good a top 8 as a team could get in these conditions where batting depth is absolutely a non-negotiable factor. But two of those, Rohit and Shreyas, strategically placed at the top and at No 4 provide the right sort of impetus for the rest of the batting unit to go about their game without having to sacrifice much. Though the pitches have behaved differently in these three matches because of varying conditions which have been hotter during the day and chilly in the evening, they have consistently remained slow.
On such slow surfaces, runs with the new ball have become a gold reserve irrespective of whether the team is batting first or chasing. In each of his three innings, Rohit’s intention has been clear. Carrying on a role he first embraced during the World Cup in 2023, he is ensuring India has a head start when the pitch is fresh and the ball is new. In their two chases here, India had 69 and 64 runs by the end of first powerplay.
While Rohit may not have been as effective in the Champions Trophy as he was at the World Cup, what it is doing is giving some valuable run cushions for the middle-order to count on. It is giving the in-coming batsmen the time to get used to the slowness of the pitch without having to bother about keeping pace with the run-rate. Against New Zealand, when Rohit fell early, even Virat Kohli – when was the last time we saw him play the cut off seamers? — tried to make the most out of the fielding restrictions as rotating the strike in the middle overs hasn’t been easy.
With Rahul, Pandya and Axar around, if India went their old school way of keeping wickets in hand before unleashing in the last 10 overs, there is no guarantee it could work. At the death, seamers have repeatedly taken pace off the ball, and teams have even employed spinners. With that being the case, demoting Rahul to No 6 with Jadeja to follow fits perfectly with their plan.
If Rohit provides the charge at the top, there is Shreyas for the middle overs. Against Pakistan, with a 67-ball 56 he made a tight chase look routine, charging at the spinners and using his positive intent to good effect. On Sunday, he had an even tougher job at hand. Earlier in the tournament while talking of his method as a middle-order batsman, Shreyas mentioned how he prefers to go on the offensive if they have lost early wickets to put the pressure on the opposition.
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To do so on this pitch was easier said than done, particularly when the Kiwi quicks were generating movement off the seam. Instead, he would take 31 deliveries to get his first boundary and once he got that, he would find two more in the next three deliveries and from there on he looked a different beast. An exceptional player against spinners, even when Mitchell Santner tempted him by slowing down the pace and invited him to step down by giving enough flight, Shreyas would resist. Happy to even defend, as on this pitch, he was fully aware of the damage that Santner could do. Instead, when Michael Bracewell and Rachin Ravindra came on, he wasted no time to put them under early pressure. He brought out his trademark lofted shots on the leg-side, while also improvising at the same time.
When Shreyas aces his role, which he has been consistently doing in the middle-order, it is also allowing the rest of the batsmen to play their game without looking at the scoreboard. So far in this tournament, he has hit 11 boundaries (behind Gill’s 16 as an opener) – all in the most challenging middle-overs and three sixes. Batting at No 4 he has a strike-rate of 82.41, showing the game to adapt to these conditions.
It is for this reason that Australia, prior to the World Cup final, spent most of their time in the planning room around how to take down Shreyas, celebrating his plotted dismissal with glee. On Tuesday, at the Champions Trophy final, he will remain the focus of their crosshairs.
