India will play the semi-final match of the T20 World Cup 2022 at Adelaide Oval on Nov 10th against England. But before the all-important clash with the mighty English team, the men in blue will try their best to overcome from all their major issues ahead of this all-important encounter.
The opening batting order of the Indian team have been performing well, both the batter are in full form whereas Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav are doing outstanding of all time at no.3 and no.4 respectively. Three main pacers Arshdeep Singh, Bhuvenshwar Kumar, and Mohammed Shami have shown improvement on Australian conditions. Hardik Pandya is doing good in the tournament with the ball but with bat, he hasn’t shown any important knock except the knock of 40 runs in the first match against Pakistan. R Ashwin and Axar Patel are playing in the team as the bowling all-rounder but in the upcoming games against England, we might see some changes in the spin attack.
Talking on this issue, Head Coach Rahul Dravid stated that we select our squad according to the pitch, and he opened the option for Chahal too because if the pitch will play slow then the spinner will have a big role to play in the important match.
“We have a completely open mind. Anybody who comes into the 15 will not potentially make us weaker, the kind of squad we’ve picked. We’ll have to go there and see. I watched some of the games (in Adelaide) and I know the tracks were slow and they gripped and they turned a bit but then, we might be playing on a completely new strip in new strip in Adelaide. The strip on which we played against Bangladesh did not spin. So if it’s slow we’ll play according to the situation. If we think it might play differently, we’ll have to put up a squad to match that” said Rahul Dravid.
However, speaking on Axar’s bowling concern he described that he bowled very well against Bangladesh and he performed well according to the situation and nature of this format and tournament.
“In a few games but he had good games as well. Again, that’s the nature of this tournament, this format. He bowled a very good over against Bangladesh just before the rain break” Dravid further added.
Another important concern of the men in blue is Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik. Karthik’s performance throughout the tournament is not up to the mark whereas Rishabh scored 3 runs in 5 balls in the previous match against Zimbabwe. Semi-final is the most crucial game and picking one of them will be a tough task for the team management and skipper.
On Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik, Dravid didn’t give any confirmation about the team selection although he praised the performance of Pant.
“It’s not that we ever lost confidence in Rishabh. We’ve got confidence in all of our 15 and they can be called on to play in the XI anytime. Rishabh has been batting a lot in the nets, hitting a lot of balls, and keeping himself ready. Heading into the semifinal, neither Pant nor Karthik has played enough impactful knocks to enable nuanced conclusions about their batting form. In Adelaide though, Pant could, on paper, be the surprise card against England’s spinners” said Rahul Dravid.
