New Zealand’s tour of India got off to a perfect start as visitors defeated hosts by six wickets in the first ODI at Wankhede, Mumbai. India, riding on Virat Kohli’s 31st century (second most in ODIs after Sachin Tendulkar) amassed 280/8 in the allotted 50 overs, with Trent Boult picking up 4/35 supported by slow left-arm bowler Mitchell Santner picking up 1/41 and Tim Southee picking up 3/73.
New Zealand in reply raced off to a quick start and Martin Guptill and Colin Munro adding 48 for the first wicket, but then NZ lost the momentum and lost Guptill and captain Kane Williamson in quick succession. The chase was restored by Ross Taylor and Tom Latham putting 200 runs on the board and seeing Black Caps through. The defeat was unexpected for the hosts as it came against the run of play. It also reiterated that the one thing that is troubling this famed batting line up is that their difficulty in facing genuine left-arm pace bowling and the performance of Boult wasn’t an exception. It has been a trend for this batting line up, which is coming short against left-arm pacers repeatedly.
Left is right against India?
International cricket is very cut throat and if opposition finds about any weakness than they will try to take advantage of it. In the ICC Champions Trophy final in England, Mohammad Amir got the wickets of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli. And, the word has spread that Indians don’t like facing left-arm pace and now many teams are coming up with this tactic to unsettle the Indian batters. Indian opener Rohit Sharma has been getting out constantly to left-arm pacers recently and on Sunday also got out to Boult while playing a shot to break the shackles. Sharma is currently at crossroads on how to face left-arm bowling and it has become an Achilles heel for India’s leading batsman. Even in the T20 which Australia won, rookie Jason Behrendorff shocked India with his left-arm pace, as he put in a man of the match performance.
Also read: India vs New Zealand: Latham, Taylor guide Kiwis to victory over India
Most of the batsman are accustomed to facing right-arm pace bowling because of the angle it. Also, left-arm pacers are rarity as most teams operate with right arm pacers and left-armers are few and far between. Over the years, the world has seen Pakistani great Wasim Akram bamboozling batsmen with his mastery and batsmen had no clue which way the ball would go. The problem arises when the batsman expects that the natural angle of a left-arm pacer is to take the ball away, but when the ball swings in then the dismissal of bowled and LBW come into play. The handicap for this Indian batting line up is that within the team they don’t have any left-arm pacer to get used to while practising as the last genuine left-arm pacer that India had was Zaheer Khan. After his retirement, India has not settled on any left-arm pacer mainly due to quality rather than quantity.
Cricket is a game of confidence and once your confidence dips it is very hard to regain the composure and batters will be doing everything that they can to rectify this minor glitch. Every team has some kind of weakness and this phase of India struggling to cope with left arm pace bowling has no doubt piqued the curiosity.
The team in recent past had faced problems from Mustafizur Rahman, Mitchell Starc and host of other bowlers who are not your standard right-arm quickies. The role of team management headed by Ravi Shastri and batting coach Sanjay Bangar comes into focus and the back room staff has to prepare batsmen feeling good mentally and make sure that they are believing in themselves — ‘left’, right and centre.
