India keen to dust off ODI rust in final pit-stop before the Champions Trophy

Context. It’s a massive word in sport, in anything actually, but let’s stick to sport for now. Context, and relevance.

What’s the relevance of a bilateral Twenty20 International series of the kind India and England have just played out, one might ask. Relevance for the players involved? Check. For the broadcasters and other commercial stakeholders? Check. For the average fan who perhaps gets to see their heroes in flesh and blood maybe about once a year unless they are willing to travel beyond their hometown? Check.

India’s 4-1 conquest of England was an unqualified success, but from a larger point of view, that doesn’t count for anything. Try saying that to Abhishek Sharma, for instance, and he will disagree as violently as form might permit. But truly, with the next T20 World Cup more than 12 months away, this face-off must be viewed in isolation, not even as a pre-audition to an audition.

But the three-match One-Day International series starting in Nagpur on Thursday? Now, that is another matter altogether.

In one of those strange but true facts, India played a grand total of three ODIs in the whole of 2024. Just sit back for a second or three, and allow that to sink in. Just three 50-over matches in a 12-month period. There was a time when the 50-overs-a-side format was considered the broadcasters’ dream because it offered them so many commercial opportunities between overs. Today, the one-day version is gasping for relevance – that word again – as it struggles to keep pace with its revered Test counterpart and the T20 upstart which has revolutionised the sport.

Hardly memorable

That outing to Colombo in August for three ODIs was hardly memorable for the right reasons. After a tie in the first match, India surrendered tamely in the next two, undone by the plethora of spinners Charith Asalanka was able to summon, himself included. Maheesh Theekshana, Dunith Wellalage, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jeffrey Vandersay and Akila Dananjaya ran rings around India’s famed batting line-up, defending middling totals on raging turners with great alacrity and making scores of 230, 240 and 248 appear far more menacing than they actually were.

The benefit of hindsight allows one to identify Indian tallies of 230, 208 and 138 – note how Sri Lanka’s scores increased with each match and India’s replies went exactly in the opposite direction — as the warning bells that went unheeded. The cream of India’s batting found it impossible to crack the spin jigsaw puzzle. There was a remarkable similarity between the batters who collapsed against Sri Lanka and those who failed to counter Mitchell Santner and Ajaz Patel in the Test series against New Zealand at home later in the year — Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, K.L. Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja and Rishabh Pant.

But we digress. As India seek to shake off the 50-over rust ahead of the Champions Trophy beginning in a fortnight’s time in Pakistan and Dubai, they have so much work ahead of them. And, excitingly, so many possibilities too.

Rohit and head coach Gautam Gambhir’s wish list must be long and varied. At the top of that list will perhaps be a return to run-making ways of the captain and his predecessor, two of the most experienced and influential ODI batters in the world.

Rohit and Kohli both had Test tours to forget of Australia, the former more than the latter. So alarmingly disappointing was his run of scores that, unprecedently, the skipper sat himself out of the final Test in Sydney last month. A return to the Ranji Trophy after nearly a decade failed to spark a turnaround, nor did Kohli make a substantial contribution on his Delhi comeback for the first time since late 2012. India’s principal desire will be runs from their two main men because as they have shown for nearly 17 years now – Rohit made his ODI debut in June 2007, Kohli in August 2008 – they have the skill and the class to determine outcomes of a game all by themselves.

Of much interest will be how Rohit approaches his innings. Especially in the last year and a half, he has swapped personal glory for team gains, taking the lead role in resoundingly advocating the style of play he wants his side to display. His aggressive starts in both white-ball World Cups were massive driving forces in India’s charge to the final in the 50-over flagship event in 2023 and to the title in the T20 show-piece last June. To some, the temptation to revert to the Rohit of old, to build an innings and then unleash his strokes, might appear irresistible but while Jofra Archer and Mark Wood and the rest aren’t exactly military medium, it’s hard to foresee Rohit dialling down his aggression massively.

India have only these three games before they head to Dubai and the Champions Trophy, where they are placed alongside Bangladesh, nominal hosts Pakistan and perennial bugbears New Zealand. They will therefore be seized of the need to approach these fixtures against England with judicious prudence while balancing any answers they are looking for with the need to keep winning, especially after their poor run in Test cricket from the middle of October.

There will be important calls to make. Such as, who should don the wicketkeeping gloves. The incumbent is Rahul, an extraordinary middle-order bat in the 50-over game when he is behind the stumps, but waiting in the wings is Pant, not yet at home in white-ball formats but with the X-factor that most teams would find hard to look beyond. In Pant’s injury-enforced absence, Rahul had a terrific World Cup and should fancy his chances of starting the series, with Pant snapping at his heels.

In good hands

Despite their frugal recent numbers, India’s batting is in good hands – famous last words? – and while much the same can be said of their bowling, it can’t be denied that the latter department looks a little undercooked. A lot of it has to do with the fact that Mohammed Shami and Kuldeep Yadav haven’t had a lot of cricket of late. Or rather, that while Shami has gradually built up steam from November onwards after being rendered hors de combat for 360 days, Kuldeep’s only outing since the middle of October was a Ranji game for Uttar Pradesh earlier this month, when he encouragingly bowled 31 overs to show that he has fully recovered from groin surgery.

With blaring question marks over Jasprit Bumrah’s availability, Shami and Kuldeep loom as India’s strike forces. Arshdeep Singh, preferred to Mohammed Siraj, is still a work in progress in the longer limited-overs format and there is a distinct slant towards spin, something Rohit is very comfortable with. The original 15-strong squad for the England series had four specialist spinners – Kuldeep had Jadeja, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar for company – and India have now thrown in a new dimension with the late inclusion of Varun Chakaravarthy, the Player of the Series in the T20I faceoff with 14 wickets from five outings.

After a disappointing brief and unsuccessful international foray that fetched him just two wickets in his first six matches, Varun found himself on the sidelines following the T20 World Cup in the UAE in November 2021. Determined to add new tricks to increase his efficacy, he shifted his focus from sidespin to overspin with terrific results. Productive back-to-back seasons for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL brought him back into international contention after 35 months and the 33-year-old Bidar-born architecture graduate has since reconstructed his career in grand style.

His last 12 T20Is have yielded 31 wickets, including two five-wicket hauls – both in losing causes, admittedly – which has precipitated his maiden call-up to the ODI set-up. Whether his inclusion for the series against Jos Buttler’s team is a short-term development owing to his hold over the English middle order in the 20-over series, or is a precursor to his being drafted into the Champions Trophy squad as a replacement for one of the other four spinners, will become apparent in the next week. He does boast 59 wickets in 23 List A (domestic 50-over) games and has shown increased fitness and mobility in the field in the last fortnight, so a strong case can be made out for throwing in another attacking, wicket-taking option in the middle overs, which have fallen into a predictable pattern of attrition over the last few years.

England will have their own problems to solve, especially after their defence of the 50-over World Cup ended in underwhelming fashion in India a year and a quarter back, when they won just three out of nine games and finished seventh in the league standings. Their tall and strong pacers may not find much joy in Pakistan, where they will play their three group matches in the Champions Trophy, but that’s not something India will spend too much time worrying about.

As it is, there is so much on the plate so far as Rohit, his deputy Gill and Gambhir are concerned.

Foremost among them is getting the key pieces to rediscover their fire and re-familiarise themselves with a format they haven’t had much taste of recently. They will be hoping against hope that Bumrah is cleared fit and fronts up for the final contest this series, in Ahmedabad next Wednesday, but they must make allowances for his potential absence and for the massive blow that will deal to their aspirations.

An exciting week ahead then, with so much at stake, so much to look forward to, so much uncertainty – perceived or otherwise – abounding and so many possibilities looming. With plenty of context and relevance thrown in.