IND vs SA, 1st T20I: Team India under the leadership of Rohit Sharma recently defeated Australia by a margin of 2-1. Australia who are the current World Champions were 1-0 up in the series, but India turned the odds in their favor as they outplayed the Aussies in all the departments and ended up winning the series. The men in blue will now play against South Africa in a three-match T20I series. This is India's final chance to properly analyze their preparations and put their plans into place before the all-important T20I World Cup that is scheduled to start on October 16, 2022.
Certainly, the fact can't be discounted that India has beaten England, Ireland, West Indies, and now Australia consecutively, but there are few grey areas in the Indian outfit that Rohit Sharma will want to address before they board the flight to Australia. India had a horror run at the 2021 edition of the T20I World Cup which caused a total overhauling of the team, The men in blue under the leadership of Kohli crashed out of the World Cup in the initial stages. With a new captain and a new coach in place, India will hope that they can turn around their fortunes. Here are the three things that the Indian team will like to fix before the World Cup starts.
The KL Rahul confusion:
Team India has always been criticized for their approach toward T20 cricket and how they choose to play it. But come the England series, earlier this year in June, India completely altered their ways of playing T20I cricket. Rohit Sharma and co. suddenly shifted gears towards playing a more aggressive form of cricket, similar to what Eoin Morgan did with the English side after the 2015 World Cup. But as of now, it seems as if KL Rahul is having loads of confusion in this new setup. The Lucknow Super Giants skipper hasn't been contributing to team India. Rahul who was suffering from a groin injury has failed to provide any kind of promising start to team India after his return. Despite everything happening around Rahul, the Indian skipper Rohit Sharma has been persisting him and has backed him. KL Rahul needs to fire if India wants to do well in the World Cup.
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The never-ending chain of injuries:
More than anything that is happening off the field, India will be more bothered about injuries that never seem to end. For a good part of the year, Bumrah was injured, Rahul was injured, and for a very moment, Virat Kohli too had a niggle. The condition now is such that anybody from the BCCI is not ready to speak about Bumrah's fitness, Bumrah who happens to be our main spearhead. Team India as of now has no replacement for Hardik Pandya and if he ends up hurting his back again, it will be a spot of bother for team India.
The all-important death bowling
There is a pattern developing that the Indians will like to address and solve as soon as possible. India crashed out of the Asia Cup as they lost consecutive matches to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bhuvneshwar has been in a very rough spot and has been leaking runs for fun at the moment. With Bumrah not being fully fit and Bhuvneshwar hitting a rough pace, things look pretty bleak for team India in the death bowling department.
