Sport

The batting and the bowling need to fire together

Durban: For a tournament that began in an alarming torrent of runs, some order and pattern has crept in through the course of the first week. Daniel Vettori’s effort at the Wanderers on Sunday was classic left-arm spin. The New Zealand captain was especially effective in changing pace and had the class of a throwback about him. Crucially, he succeeded in winning the match for the team.

Attacking and quality bowling wins matches across formats. Batsmen and teams have yet to understand how to pace their innings. Some teams go hammer and tongs upfront only to lose it thereafter while a few others are tentative, fearing getting bowled out. A good bowler understands the instability and exploits it.

After starting the tournament with some worry, bowlers like Vettori, Harbhajan Singh and Brett Lee have lent another much-needed dimension to Twenty20.

Vettori doesn’t believe that going defensive is the way out of trouble in Twenty20. “It (wicket) didn’t turn a lot but it sat on the wicket, which is difficult for batsmen who like little bit of pace. The people are learning that the more you take wickets, the more chances you have. If you sit back and be defensive, it is going to hurt you,” he said.

“You think you have to take it wicket by wicket and ground by ground. We are tying to formulate as much as we can because, given how small the game is, you can have a prescribed style to your game. We are tying to use people in certain areas but the other thing is you have to think on your feet. Things change so fast. You can’t stick to the plans you have. You have to change it up. I think most teams are learning. They are going to mix their plans up a lot and hopefully they will work out,” he added.

The Indian bowling could pick up something from Vettori.

Ajit Agarkar is leaking runs aplenty and has been swatted around in the death-overs. Indian captain M.S. Dhoni spoke about the need for India to improve its death-overs bowling and observed that the batsmen had allowed themselves to be stifled by Vettori.

“He was among the best bowlers for New Zealand. We did not want to lose further wickets and were looking to take singles off him,” he said. The extended Indian tail is another worry for the team, which only makes opposing bowlers look better, and puts added pressure on the top and the middle order.

“It is the responsibility of every individual-bowler or part-timer, depending on the conditions, to come up with performances that the team wants from them,” Dhoni said.

With a match against England coming up on Wednesday, India requires its bowling and batting to fire together, instead of taking turns as they have done so far.

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