Bilateral Series

Indian bowling analysis

Freestyle

January 14, 2016

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WACA, Australia

India began the 5-match ODI bilateral series against Australia on a losing note. Will the rest of the series prove any better?

An outing in Australia has rarely been comfortable for India, which has lost most of its matches played Down Under. The current series seems to be no different. Though the Indian team won both the warm-up matches on January 8 and 9, it lost when it mattered most as in the first ODI, Australia reached the target of 310 rather easily and won by 5 wickets in Perth.

Despite a double century partnership between Virat Kohli and opener Rohit Sharma, who top scored for India with an unbeaten 171, India could not accelerate properly through the match and set a rather below par target for the Aussies. The pitch was clearly for the batsmen and bowlers, both Indian and Australian, had a bad day.

India’s top two bowlers at the moment are Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Shami, but the latter will sit out the entire series due to injury. Umesh’s initial spell was remarkable, but later on he conceded runs, giving away 54 runs in his 10 overs and without a wicket. Barinder Sran had a dream debut and took 3 wickets, while Ravichandran Ashwin, who is the leader of the Indian bowling attack, didn’t impress much with his bowling, though he took 2 wickets towards the end. Ravindra Jadeja showed ordinary bowling as well.

Ishant Sharma didn’t play in the first ODI, which proved to be a draw back for the Indian team as he has experience with the Australian wickets and could have bought both pace and experience in the game.

Witnessing the performance of the players, Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma along with Barinder Sran will have to take the major responsibility for the Indian bowling attack in the series. And while Australia lack a prominent spinner in the series, India has Ashwin.

Considering that the pitch was a flat wicket and wasn’t ideal for bowling the overall Indian attack was decent. If India get the basics right and not experiment much, they may crush the Australian batting line-up.