3rd T20I: With no Hazlewood around, Indian batters can breathe easy

The Indian batters will breathe a little easier in the absence of Josh Hazlewood as they look to put up an improved performance, but the baffling omission of left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh continues to raise eyebrows ahead of the third T20 International against Australia on Sunday.

Hazlewood’s pinpoint accuracy when it comes to hitting the right length, coupled with disconcerting bounce that he always generates around the corridor of uncertainty did become a bit of a nightmare for the Indian batters.

With the Ashes Test starting at the end of this month, Hazlewood has been given a break to rejuvenate before the gruelling five-Test series. He won’t be part of the remainder of the series.

“It would obviously be a relief. I have never faced such bowling,” star opener Abhishek Sharma said after the Melbourne game as he seemed to be in awe of the Aussie speedster.

And his absence would also mean that Indian batters, who have serious technical flaws in dealing with bounce and seam movement, would feel a bit more assured while facing the likes of Xavier Bartlett, Nathan Ellis or Sean Abbott.

Both skipper Suryakumar Yadav and skipper-in-waiting Shubman Gill have had problems negotiating deliveries with extra bounce and good degree of seam movement. Surya and Gill would like to revisit their opening game’s playbook when they looked in ominous touch at Canberra.

The Bellerive Oval at the Hobart is one ground where the side boundaries are smaller in size and hence the length would be paramount considering anything short would be flying over cover, point, square leg or mid-wicket on either side of the fence.

Bellerive Oval is the ground where the phenomenon of Virat Kohli as a champion ODI batter took shape back in 2012 when he played a masterful knock of 133 not out in 86 balls against Sri Lanka in a chase of 321. Bellerive Oval track has traditionally been a belter for white ball games.

This is also the BBL home ground for pacer Ellis, who happens to captain local franchise Hobart Hurricanes.

Curious case of Arshdeep Singh

The Indian team management’s obsession with batting depth has been a topic of discussion on this tour and some of the batting failures like a paltry total of 125 at the MCG does question the merit of such a strategy.

On a pitch with extra bounce, India went in with three spinners and once again Arshdeep didn’t find place in the playing XI despite being the only Indian bowler with 100 T20I wickets.

“If Jasprit Bumrah is playing, then Arshdeep Singh’s name should be second on the list. If Bumrah is not playing, Arshdeep Singh’s name would be first on the list,” Ravichandran Ashwin had said on his Hindi YouTube channel and he couldn’t have been more blunt.

In fact, a look at the statistics suggests that often India’s No. 8 in the past 15 to 20 games has faced an average of five balls per innings and hence whether it is a viable option is being questioned repeatedly.

There is a school of thought that when one stacks the team with too many batters, each one at the top of the order feels that there is someone who is coming after them and the approach is more cavalier on tracks which warrants a bit more discretion while batting.

Even if one considers that Harshit is a capable batter, which he certainly is, some of the numbers during the second game would certainly be an eye opener.

Harshit scored 35 off 33 balls, with three fours and a six.

If one takes out 18 runs scored through boundaries in four balls, the beefy all-rounder from Delhi managed 17 off 29 balls and at one stage wasted deliveries keeping Abhishek Sharma stranded at the other end.

It is now understood that Harshit features firmly in head coach Gambhir’s plans and is a non-negotiable entity as far as current playing elevens are concerned but his bowling has been inconsistent to say the least.

But at Hobart, where the open area on one side will aid swing bowling, India would do well to think of sacrificing one spin bowling option at the altar of playing Arshdeep.

Squads:

India: Suryakumar Yadav ©, Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Arshdeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar.

Australia: Mitchell Marsh ©, Sean Abbott (games 1-3), Xavier Bartlett, Mahli Beardman (games 3-5), Tim David, Ben Dwarshuis (games 4-5), Nathan Ellis, Glenn Maxwell (games 3-5), Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kuhnemann, Mitchell Owen, Josh Philippe, Tanveer Sangha, Matthew Short, and Marcus Stoinis   Match Starts at: 1:45 pm IST.