India vs. Australia: India's strategy is to attack in order to survive

NEW DELHI: Virat Kohli batted against net bowlers for 45 minutes in the Kotla nets on Wednesday afternoon, freshened up, had a few words with head coach Rahul Dravid, and zoomed out of the premises while the rest of the Indian team was just getting into an intense net session.
What Kohli did while at the nets served as a model for batters in spin-friendly conditions. The practise pitches were clearly bare, dry, and crumbly as a cookie. Virat walked up to the long area and scratched it vigorously across its width. Kohli kept charging down the track, clearly looking to attack, as left-arm spinner Saurabh Kumar and off-spinners Pulkit Narang and Hrithik Shokeen plugged away at the spot.
Even when putting away the short ones, the front-foot press was evident off the pacers. The entire session’s goal was to hone his run-scoring ability.

Touring teams in a hurry usually exaggerate the amount of assistance Indian spinners receive from these surfaces. It all comes down to how batters devise a strategy to actually score runs. Recently, Indian batters have struggled to put up big numbers on home pitches. The current team is on the verge of cracking that code, having posted 400 batting seconds in the first Test last week in Nagpur. Two days before the second Test against Australia, Dravid, a former absolute master of batting in Indian conditions, laid out his team management’s mindset, which revolves around the importance of counter-attacking.

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“On tricky wickets and in different conditions, you have to play slightly differently. You must strike a delicate balance between defence and being able to turn the attack on the opposing bowlers. On wickets like these, if you sit back and don’t put pressure back on, it can build up to the point where you lose two to three quick wickets,” Dravid said on Wednesday.

“Whenever he had the chance, Rohit (Sharma) put the pressure back on the opposition in Nagpur. That’s something Axar and Jadeja excelled at during their collaboration. It is not the only way to play, but in these circumstances, being able to put pressure back on the opponents is critical,” he added.

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This is precisely why team management is eager to re-sign Shreyas Iyer. Iyer has been India’s most destructive Test batter in these conditions in the last 15 months, following Rishabh Pant.

“Shreyas has played well but what has stood out is his temperament in quite a few pressure situations since he has been around. Right through his debut game in Kanpur and in last year and half, every time he has been in tough situations, he, Rishabh and Jadeja are the ones who have been bailing us out and playing those critical knocks. Along with his skill of playing spin really well, he has spent a lot of time in domestic cricket before getting in, obviously he understands how to get runs,” Dravid mentioned.

While all the focus has been on how capricious the pitches will be, Team India has gone back to the drawing board and have put emphasis on batters resurrecting their form.

Also Read: Chetan Sharma’s undercover investigation shocks the BCCI and the Indian cricket industry (sportsdigest.in)

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