When India lock horns with Sri Lanka on Tuesday evening, it will be the second of their three Super 4 matches in five nights at the Asia Cup 2022. In a cramped tournament such as this, encompassing 13 matches in 16 days, it’s inevitable that games will come thick and fast, which makes rest and recovery as crucial as execution of skills and game plans on the park.
As if the packed schedule and the enervating heat weren’t bad enough, India have another equation to consider. In light of Sunday’s five-wicket loss to Pakistan, India’s future will depend on other results if they don’t win their two remaining matches.
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For confidence and belief, which are any way hardly in short supply within the camp, they need not look beyond their record of 17 wins and just seven losses in 25 T20I games against the Islanders. Few are in any doubt about the fact that India are the more superior side here despite the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, Harshal Patel and now Ravindra Jadeja, though Sri Lanka have served notice of the mayhem they can inflict by stringing together two victories on the bounce following an embarrassing capitulation against Afghanistan in their opener.
Because India have so many versatile players to pick from, sometimes the ‘happy headache’ ceases to be so. Tuesday must entail another slight rejig and the possibility of Yuzvendra Chahal making way for off-spinner R Ashwin, given that Sri Lanka have three left-handers in the top seven.
Rahul Dravid doesn’t like to use the word ‘experiment’—a word that went out of circulation as soon as Greg Chappell quit as coach after the abortive 2007 World Cup campaign—but India will continue to try things out in a bid to unearth the best combination each match, with the rider that the best XI of today might not remain so the following day against a different opposition. The return to fluency of KL Rahul and Virat Kohli is an unquantifiable positive that fits snugly into the new philosophy advocated by the team management. Both are outstanding performers with proven pedigree and track records. If they and the skipper, Rohit Sharma, find their range, it’s unlikely that the middle-order will make the same mistake of not capitalising on the start after frittering away a position of great promise in the Powerplay against Pakistan on Sunday.
