Team India led by Virat Kohli will march on to the ODI series after completing a
whitewash over New Zealand in the five-match long T20I contest that concluded a
few days ago.
There are
plenty of positives that the Indians can derive from the T20I series, certainly
the fact that they commenced an all-important tour to a challenging country on
an extremely overwhelming note. Now, coming onto the ODIs, here we analyze the
intricate facets that could determine the outcome of this series:
Most important talking point for India:
How do the two new openers shape up?
Rohit Sharma has been ruled out of the entire New Zealand series. Image: BCCI
Rohit Sharma
has been pulled out of the rest of the tour due to the calf injury that he
picked up in the final T20I. Accordingly, Mayank Agarwal and Prithvi Shaw are
expected to open the batting in the first ODI and hopefully throughout the
course of the ODI series too. Both Agarwal and Shaw, are incredibly talented
batsmen and their naturally attacking style of play gauges well with the
demands of the ODI format. They prefer taking on the bowlers from the early
stages of the innings, deal with boundaries on a regular basis and are a lethal
force to reckon with whenever the spinners are brought into action.
It is a
brilliant opportunity for both of them to make a strong case for themselves and
also for the Indian team to demonstrate how immensely well-equipped is their
bench strength considering neither of the top three openers as in Rohit Sharma,
KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan will occupy the top two spots in the playing XI.
Their potential success in the upcoming series would make up for excellent
viewing of the plethora of batting riches emerging from this country currently.
Key players to watch out for:
a) KL Rahul:
KL Rahul has
been in a sublime form in the past few months, slotting seamlessly into any
given position and plundering runs in abundance with sheer class and elegance
that is so typical of him. After having successfully opened the batting
throughout the T20I series, he would be shifted to the number five position in
ODIs where he would have to don a completely different role for the team.
If Rahul’s
innings at Rajkot against Australia was anything to go by, it surely suggests
that the man is in such kind of a purple patch that he would very conveniently
adjust and carry out any task that is asked of him. Additionally, the
27-year-old would be doing wicket-keeping as well and it would be interesting
to observe how he manages to deal with the physical strain that comes with that
challenge especially in ODI cricket as the span of time would be considerably
longer when compared to T20s where Rahul has majorly kept at least in
international cricket so far.
b) Mayank Agarwal:
One must not
forget that Mayank Agarwal was one of the replacements that the team management
called for once Vijay Shankar was ruled out of the World Cup back in late June
last year. Though Agarwal didn’t attain an opportunity to feature in that the tournament, this three-match series throws up an excellent chance for him to
demonstrate his mettle and solidify his position in white-ball cricket too. The
Karnataka-based batsman boasts of an average of 50.1 and a strike rate of 101.2
in his List A career so far and could most definitely capitalize upon the
shorter boundaries that would be prevalent during this series against the
Kiwis.
c) Jasprit Bumrah:
This will be a key series for Jasprit Bumrah. Image: BCCI
It’s not
often that Jasprit Bumrah has off-days, but he surely encountered a few of them
when he arguably struggled to correct his rhythm in the T20Is. However, as he
settled into the groove, Bumrah was back at his ferocious best towards the fag
end of the season and clear evidence of the same was when he bowled those
fuller-length deliveries into the blockhole at will on numerous occasions.
It usually
takes any pacer some time to recover after a lengthy injury-layoff and Bumrah
is not averse to that process. However, the ODI series will be an even sterner
test as the physical demands that would be put in front of him would have to be
tackled accordingly. As the lead bowler, he will have to assume to
wicket-taking responsibility soon enough too and hence merely observing how
Bumrah goes about his business in the upcoming ODIs would be a firmer prototype
of what one must expect of him in the Test series that would conclude this
tourney too.
Interesting stats to look forward to in this series:
1: Merely 208 runs behind the 12000 runs mark, Virat
Kohli could enter that elite club in the upcoming three matches.
2: The first ODI could mark one of the few occasions when
both the openers of the Indian team could end up making their debuts in the
very same match!
Schedule:
The three
ODIs will be played on the 5th, 8th and the 11th
of February with all of them commencing at 7:30 AM IST.