Did Virat under-utilised Jasprit Bumrah in a match against Pakistan?
India vs Pakistan T20 World Cup 2021: The much-awaited India vs Pakistan clash has always gone for mouth-watering finishes and yesterday’s contest was no different. Pakistan manage to go past their jinx and defeated India by 10 wickets to register their first-ever win against India in the World Cup history and made a strong opening in their T20 World Cup 2021 campaign.
Several talking points were left by team India after the failed start where the openers misfired, middle-order didn’t provide enough support and the bowlers not giving the required output.
Team India did manage to total 151 runs after three early wickets, while it looked far from the average total against the Pakistan openers. Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan handsomely breached the target with 13 balls to spare and sealed the first win for Pakistan by 10 wickets.
In the post-match discussions on Cricbuzz, former Indian pacer Zaheer Khan reckons that Virat Kohli might have missed the trick to at least make a comeback by not utilising Jasprit Bumrah.
Virat went to Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami to open the bowling attack for India while Jasprit Bumrah came third, which perhaps, didn’t go well with the team’s requirement. Khan believes that though Pakistan outshone Indians in every department, India could have thought of a comeback by introducing Jasprit Bumrah much earlier than the third over.
“You have your plans before the game, but once you are in the game, you’ve just got to go with it – maybe change certain things that you had planned. Maybe you could have used Bumrah differently. By the time the game finished, you had under-utilised Bumrah,” said Zaheer Khan.
Zhan reckons that the Indian trump card was left under-utilised by Virat Kohli.
“They could have gone for their trump card right up front rather than getting him into the game in the third over. Starting with him might have turned things around a bit.”
“But these are things in hindsight. At times, you stick to the strategy which you have made. I am sure the think-tank in the innings break would have thought about it and chosen otherwise. But who would have expected that the two openers would just carry the innings through.”
While Jasprit Bumrah conceded 22 runs from his three overs, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami went for 25 and 43 runs respectively in their quota of overs, which wasn’t completely delivered.
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Team India’s batting woes:
The former pacer further believe that the cushion of an extra 20-25 runs would have come to India’s advantage given that dew was going to be a factor. India managed just 151 runs in 20 overs with skipper Virat Kohli making a healthy contribution of 57 while Rishabh Pant scored 39.
Indian openers were sent to the dressing room with scores of 0 and 3 against their names by Shaheen Shah Afridi. Moreover, the middle order also found it hard to get going against the Pakistani bowlers.
“The dew factor did play a role. Having said that, when you know that dew is going to be a factor, you’ve got to have that extra cushion of 20-25 runs on the board, just to stay on top of things,” added Zaheer Khan
“But today wasn’t the case. Right throughout the game, you saw Pakistan in control of the game. They showed the intent, and India was always trying to catch up in this particular game, which was pretty evident.”
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