Here’s Why We Should Not Worry About India Depending Too Much On Virat Kohli

It was an important game last night and what looked like a sticky end for India, turned out to be an ice skating rink for Virat Kohli, eventually. It was match winning innings on Kohli’s part, almost a routine drill for the Indian vice-captain now, and amidst all the celebrations, critics have found something to worry about.

After Dhoni’s statement at the post-match press meet that the top order batsmen must buckle up, critics have begun claiming that the Indian cricket team is getting dangerously dependent on Virat Kohli – a reminiscent of the 90s when Tendulkar was the only saving grace on almost every occasion.

Agreed, the performance hasn’t been balanced among the batting line-up, it’d still be an over-analysis to conclude that Indian cricket is becoming a one-man show. Here’s why:

 

The bowling line-up has been better than ever

Let’s take yesterday’s match for instance. It’s true that the top order collapsed early and at one point it looked like the match is going out of India’s hands. However, it could have been much tougher a chase for Kohli and friends had Indian bowlers not restricted Australia to a mere 160/6 which is quite an achievable target in a twenty over match even though the tracks were said to be bowler friendly yesterday. India lives up to its reputation of having an intractable spin attack as always with Ashwin’s off-breaks almost untraceable.

 

India’s new death over specialist hasn’t disappointed yet

The ever criticized fast bowling attack of India looks, for a change, the perfect amount of effective with fresh young seamers like Bumrah and Pandya who make up with their good length deliveries for what they lack in pace. Headed by veteran Ashish Nehra, the bowling attack has been playing a crucial role in every match throughout the tournament.

 

It takes two to tango in between the 22 yards

Although, it does hold true that most of the damages against the Aussies were made by Virat in yesterday’s match, but the two crucial partnerships played a key role here. First, it was Yuvraj Singh – a man who has been the butt of ridicule lately – whose thankless 21 runs and a major support to Kohli on the other side of the strike was a key factor that slowly took the match away from the Kangaroos.

 

And then, there’s always MS Dhoni….

Then comes in the skipper who, with his lightning 18 runs of 10 balls accompanied Virat to an easy victory. With Pandya, a reliable all-rounder, still waiting at the dug-outs, it only showed that Kohli had all the support he needed to emerge a hero in yesterday’s match.

 

 It’s not the same as the 90s situation

It was a time when every opponent had to pick up one wicket – Tendulkar’s, to seal the deal against India. However, that’s not the case anymore as the Indian batting order doesn’t collapse with the dismissal of Virat. In the recent tour of Australia earlier this year, India beat the hosts 3-0 in the twenty over matches with hardly any help from Virat Kohli.

It was a crucial series win for the Indians right before the beginning of the Twenty20 world series and an overseas victory against a worthy opponent as Australia clearly re-established the former world champions as one of the top favorites for the world cup.

 

The game has changed a lot since

With the power-plays coming into the feature, cricket has evolved to something much more demanding. Scoring runs alone does not win you matches anymore as no score is big enough and when it comes to T20, a whole lot of things come into play which was mostly ignored during the 90s. Sloppy fielding was almost synonymous to Indian cricket and so was bad running between the wickets.

 

It’s an over-all field play that counts at the end of the day

Fortunately, players today are fit as a tack and every single run cut short off the opponents score with the lickety-split fielding is the ghost element that wins matches for India. Take the match against Bangladesh for instance. When the match was almost over for India, it was the 34-year-old legs of Dhoni that sprinted like a Kangaroo, stumping Mustafizur Rahman before he could take the one run that would cost India dearly.

Here’s the thing: when the team struggles, someone has to step up and there’s nothing alarming about it. This is one of the finest, most balanced Indian team in years which looks quite set to bring the World Cup home one more time.

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