Asia Cup Preview: Experimental India Get Ready To Steamroll Hong Kong
Asia Cup: KL Rahul couldn’t have asked for easier opposition to get back into their rhythm as a lively India prepare to steamroll the Hong Kongers in their second and final group league match of the Asia Cup on Wednesday. The Group A match is nothing more than a glorified net session for Rohit Sharma’s men against a team made up of mostly Pakistani and Indian expatriates who are otherwise not good enough to play first-class cricket in either country.
After a hard-earned victory over Pakistan in the final thriller, from the script Hardik PandyaAgainst Hong Kong, the focus will be on the batsmen and their adequate playing time.
Rahul, whose first T20I of 2022 was against Pakistan last night, would like to come out all guns blazing and may take the opportunity to try an alternative batting style early on compared to his style in the IPL.
In T20Is, teams aim for strike performance and often a 20-ball 45 is higher than a 90 not out/65 balls.
The quality and importance of the innings in the larger context of the game is more important at this stage as India prepares for the T2O World Cup hosted by Australia from 16 October to 13 November.
It’s clear that the quality of Hong Kong’s bowling is, to put it politely, not up to Pakistan’s, but there’s always that fear because you don’t really know what to expect from an unknown side.
Hence, it is important that Rahul makes full use of this opportunity to gain confidence before the start of the Super Fours and the end of the tournament.
Skipper Rohit has made it clear that the experiments will continue, so one should not be surprised if there is another batting order on Wednesday that could be tried.
for Virat KohliThe Hong Kong match is all about a new quality batting in the middle against an attack that will certainly be intimidating with his mere presence in the middle.
Even Rohit, after a lackluster performance against Pakistan, would like to deposit a few in the stands.
It would be interesting to see if Ravindra Jadeja will be sent to the No. 4 position against Hong Kong or whether Rishabh Pant let’s try instead Dinesh Karthikjust to give him playing time.
While India’s top order reverted to its old preference of safety against Pakistan, it had a lot to do with the quality of the attack on display even without Shaheen Shah Afridi.
Perhaps one could safely judge whether or not India’s attacking play works in the power game only when they play against attacks that are deeper than those of England, West Indies or Sri Lanka.
So the true judge of the batting order’s attacking mindset will only be proven against sides like Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.
