India the land of producing world class batsmen. Be it the great Sunil Gavaskar, god of cricket Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, the wall Rahul Dravid, our own Very Very Special Laxman, Mr. Destructive Virendra Sehwag and in present era the likes of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. It does include a lot of other names which could not get a mention here. History of Indian cricket has always been enriched with some of finest players to grace the game. Even if we look at the current batting line-up of team India majority of them would make a place in any world team.
India may have tried a lot of options at the top of the order but everyone have shown promise in whatever limited chances they got. Be it Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal or Shubhman Gill, all have showcased their talent in last two years. The powerful middle order is one of the best in the world featuring The new wall of Indian cricket Pujara, the run machine of modern era King Kohli and cool minded Mumbaikar Ajinkya Rahane. This batting line is more then enough to give bowlers a shiver down their spine. But what the world have witnessed in last few matches is completely different story.
Indian tail enders have never been known for their fighting spirit with bat in hand and that was the reason of team being on the loosing side most of the time once the top order departs. But from last 5-6 years this scenario has somewhat changed. With the evolution of T20 cricket and importance of every man contributing in all aspects of the game, bowlers are now putting price on their wickets and not throwing away like their predecessors used to do. Eighties and Nineties have witnessed a lot of matches being lost because of the complete surrender of lower order. The world have witnessed the real talent of lower middle order and lower order for the first time in the 1999 world cup played at England. Journey of the teams like Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand in that tournament was satisfactory because of hard hitting capabilities of their lower middle order batsmen like Moin Khan, Wasim Akram, Azhar Mehmood and Abdul Razzaq for Pakistan, Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock for South Africa and Chris Cairns, Chris Harris and Adam Denial Vettori for New Zealand.
Coming back to the title of this article, what the world have seen in Australia this year and in recent series against England was completely unexpected. Failure of the top order have not at all impacted the spirit of the lower middle order and lower order, instead they came out with more positive intent and achieved the feat which even the batsmen were not able to. If the fans have forgotten the instances, just a little recap – Washington Sunder and Shardul Thakur partnership, Ashwin and Injured Vihari spending the entire day on field to save the match, Rishabh Pant with the tail winning the match for India. and even in this series Ashwin’s century and Pant’s fightback every time, Sunder and Axar’s crucial partnership in the last match.
All these performance on one side promises for bright future of Indian cricket but on the other end it also raise some serious concerns about the constant failures of our famous middle order. If they will keep failing the same way, WTC could remain a dream for the fans. We can not always rely on lower order to perform and expect to win matches.
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