As India looks to make every match and session count in the lead-up to the huge tournament, skipper Rohit Sharma says that it is time to succeed.
In preparation for their Asia Cup encounter against Pakistan on Friday in Pallekele, India’s captain Rohit Sharma and coach Rahul Dravid attend a practise session.
Pallekele: With a month until the World Cup, Team India looks like a group of backbenchers frantically reading through textbooks in preparation for the crucial board examinations. But despite having to rest some of their top players due to injuries and workload management problems, they finally appear to have a fully functional squad available, except KL Rahul.
Every practise and day counts between now and the World Cup. In that regard, their training session at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium demonstrated intensity that wasn’t lost. The pacers gave it their all during the three-hour practise before their opening match against Pakistan, and the batsmen displayed the kind of determination that they had been harping on for ages. The day has arrived when they can no longer use matches to see who fits their combo better or act as though they are in sleep mode. Practically speaking, the experimentation phase is over.
Mohammed Siraj provided evidence, if anyone required it. Siraj, who had warmed up by this point in India’s online session, was not in the mood to distribute gifts. He nipped Virat Kohli with a backhand. The ball rose so badly that it got through Kohli’s defences and struck flush on his hand, causing the batter to wince in discomfort. Rahul Dravid, the head coach, could not help but give a thumbs up as he watched from the other end.
In anticipation of the mega India-Pakistan match in 2023, people will swarm to the sleepy island hamlet of Pallekele.
The tide has shifted even though this is the first one-day international between these longtime rivals since the 2019 World Cup in Manchester, when India and Pakistan were on opposite ends of the spectrum. Pakistan has surpassed India in limited-overs cricket and international competitions over the past four years as they have gotten steadily stronger. With the World Cup just around the way, it won’t be a terrible moment to reverse the trend for the latter. They have had a tendency to falter in competitions like the Asia Cup and ICC events despite dominating bilateral series at home. India cannot afford to take the Asia Cup lightly given that the World Cup is the primary objective. Their house will burn down if they don’t put on a good show and make their point.
They haven’t instilled much confidence in their World Cup preparations thus far. India has reached the point where they believe they must give up on batting depth in order to field the strongest XI because their top five players are unremarkable and their pacers aren’t good with the bat. Given how long Suryakumar Yadav spent bowling leg-spinners in the nets, it was clear that India was still hoping rather than believing that some of their plans would work.
