The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Rohit in great nick

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Rohit in great nick

Anil Kumble

The Indian team’s focus at the moment is the opener against Bangladesh.

Bangladesh may have lost both their warm-up matches but they did well enough against Australia and Sri Lanka to suggest they are not past their days of upsetting top teams. They took almost 200 off Australia and ran Sri Lanka very close. They do have a number of naturally aggressive batsmen and anyway, most of them play Tests itself as if they are Twenty20s!

The Indian batting, is, of course, no less powerful. Rohit Sharma, especially, has been in tremendous form and it augurs well. Rohit may have succeeded in the warm-ups as an opener but, I, for one, believe that if Viru is fit, then Rohit will have to move down to three or four. It doesn’t pay to tinker too much with your batting order in big tournaments.

Good move

The bowling too is in good hands even if some of the bowlers went for runs in the practice games. The move to have Ishant Sharma bowling the middle overs is a good one and has worked well.

The team think tank, who would dearly want Zaheer Khan fit and back, will probably continue having Ishant bowling in the middle and should he strike a good partnership with a spinner at the other end, it will be of great help to the side.

Yes, even in Twenty20, bowling partnerships are crucial even if it maybe for just two or four overs. If you manage to follow up one good over with another, the other side could well lose their way and the plot.

Hawkeye Communications

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