Memories are short. More so in Indian cricket. In under two months since the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup ended, India has played nine T20Is in preparation for the summer’s T20 World Cup in the United States of America and the Caribbean. But with a gargantuan IPL season ahead of us, one wonders how much of the action in the bilateral contests will be remembered and how much forgotten.
Nonetheless, these internationals would have helped the think-tank led by Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma try out different players, identify personnel for specific roles and take steps towards zeroing in on a winning combination ahead of the marquee competition. Wednesday’s final T20I of the three-match series between India and Afghanistan at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium will be the last such exercise.
It helps that unlike football, cricket doesn’t involve as many synchronous movements, and players are often rotated without disturbing the overall balance. One such beneficiary has been southpaw Shivam Dube, who has scored consecutive unbeaten half-centuries, both of them match-winning and at a strike-rate in excess of 150.
