4th ODI: The chase was on, but a strategic mistake derailed it for India

Watching international cricket at the Jharkhand State Cricket Association International Stadium makes for uncomfortable viewing. For a centre that boasts of giving Mahendra Singh Dhoni to Indian cricket, there is something amiss about the state of the pitch and outfield here.

While the wicket was used for a domestic game prior to this fourth One-Day International, the outfield remains rugged, a puzzling yet constant feature here. In February they had hosted a Twenty20 International against Sri Lanka. It bore the same weary look. Two years ago, when the two teams had played an ODI here, it was again a very patchy, sandy cricket field. It is fortunate that no player has suffered a serious injury here in its past international fixtures.

That ODI on November 16, 2014 had given India their last ODI series win against a proper ODI outfit. On Wednesday, they could have improved that record, but were snuffed out by an intelligent New Zealand.

They will have another chance of course, in the final ODI at Visakhapatnam. But make no mistake, 3-1 is a much better score-line going into that match as compared to 2-2.

Winning the toss

First win of the coin toss in seven attempts, eight if you include the practice game against Mumbai as well. For a team with such a record, you would expect them to break away from routine, especially in a must-win situation.

Kane Williamson and his team management are an intelligent lot, though. Even as Dhoni said that he would have bowled first on this pitch, the visiting skipper talked about the conditions on hand – a slow pitch, where a game had recently been played on. He wanted to bat first, after bringing in three spinners into the eleven. Clearly they had a plan.

The first part included getting some decent runs. And here, Martin Guptill made all the difference. Together with Tom Latham, he put on 80/0 in the first ten overs. In comparison, India scored 50/1. This is one of the key areas where the game was lost.

The faith shown in Guptill through this trip finally worked. He is someone who can hit the ball hard, and it was needed on this day when the slow wicket-combination did not allow for easy boundaries. On a day they bet on calling the toss, and Guptill fired, fans should have read the signs for a Black Caps’ win.

However, their middle order did not score as many as they would have liked, in keeping with how they have suffered through the series. Only this time, it was not down to their faults, but owing to a sluggish pitch.

As such, 261 was never a safe target. But it was a fighting one. And this team knows how to push.

The Virat dependency

India’s openers have disappointed in this series. Rohit Sharma has scores of 14, 15, 13 and 11. Ajinkya Rahane has done better in comparison – scores of 33, 28, 5, 57 – but not enough to safeguard his position at the top of the order, let alone give an advantage to his team. This last innings could have been that vital knock, but he was out lbw soon after reaching his half-century. Importantly enough, Virat Kohli had already been dismissed.

We know that he is a magnificent chaser. On only 10 occasions, he has scored 50-plus and India has lost a game. However, when he fails to score a fifty chasing, India has lost 24 times. It has happened 13 times in the last two or so seasons, outlining a higher dependency on him to get India across the line.

It is at a peak now, given that Dhoni is struggling with the notion of adapting his game to No. 4, leaving the finishing role to the youngsters. The Indian skipper still has that urge to bat lower and play the hero, but he is also acutely aware of his waning powers. At the same time he has an eye on the future and is bidding to groom the next great finisher for his team. Ranchi was the perfect situation wherein all these factors boiled over and cost India the match.

“It is a great learning experience. Only when they play in such matches and such situations, they will figure out how to chase down such totals. It is important to give them time,” said the skipper after the 19-run loss.

Axar ahead of proper batsmen?

Only thing herein is that the team management made it unnecessarily hard for the youngsters to finish it off via a strategic mistake. There is no plausible explanation for sending Axar Patel at No. 5 ahead of Manish Pandey. First, he is only a stopgap option who will lose his spot as soon as Ravindra Jadeja comes back. If it had been the latter instead, it would have still made some sense to counter Mitchell Santner.

This is where the second argument emerges. The theory of left-handers encountering left-arm spin is over-rated. It works only in Twenty20 cricket, where the whole idea is slam bang. In ODI cricket, there is still an element of playing for time, a period shorter than in Tests but still longer than T20s.

At that point in the innings, despite Dhoni’s dismissal, India could have had the chance to resurrect the chase had proper batsmen – read Pandey and Kedar Jadhav – been at the crease together. With Patel eating up deliveries at the other end, this didn’t happen and by the time they came together, the pressure was mounting.

If you want to teach someone how to finish games like Dhoni did, you need to throw them in the deep end, and not hide them behind ridiculous theories or substitute players. You need to give them a chance to get set, build their innings, and stretch the game to the very end. You need to give them the opportunity to exert themselves on the opposition.

India lost because they took all of this away from Pandey, Jadhav and Hardik Pandya, and thus paid the price of an unforced error on a sluggish pitch.