SERIES TAKEAWAYS
Follow UsYet another T20I bilateral series and yet another Indian victory!
This year, the Indian men have played 26 T20Is and won 24 out of those, losing just two encounters. Hence, this 3-1 result against South Africa in South Africa might not be that big to boast of. However, this series, which probably only happened because it made Cricket South Africa (CSA) around 600 million Rands, has left India with many positives as they look ahead to their brave new T20I future, which looks full of enthralling possibilities.
India’s new batting template - attack, attack, attack!
What started during the Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid era has finally reached a stage where the entire team has not only bought into it but also has the players finally executing this new strategy to unparalleled success.
Gone are the days when Indian batters used to wait and watch in a T20I game and then try to score just above par and win games. Now, their intent leads them to walk down the track against pacers right from the first over, and the result is that in seven out of 15 innings since the 2024 T20 World Cup triumph has seen India score above 200. Four of the eight times that they didn’t score 200 or above, they were actually batting second.
When you do it so often, and with an almost set template, you can’t just be doing it because the tracks are flat or the bowling is dodgy. The Indian batters have shown genuine craftiness in altering lines and lengths and finding gaps in the field.
The batters using the crease a lot more has eventually led the bowlers to keep altering their lengths, which makes it easier for the Indian batters to line them up. Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, and Tilak Varma’s inclusion at the top has ensured that all three have exemplified India’s no-hold-only-hit approach. That has allowed some leeway to Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Rinku Singh, who haven’t been at their best with the bat.
Even 300 isn’t safe in a 20-over game when a team is batting like that. They have already reached 297 and 283 once. How long before they breach even that supposedly unattainable milestone? Even SKY (pun intended) isn’t the limit for this new Indian batting outfit.
Samson, a lock at the top
Three T20I centuries in the five games is a consistency of another level, and Samson has attained that with his newfound position at the top of the Indian batting order.
Backed by the management, Samson has shown immense clarity as to how he wishes to approach his batting, which is reflected in his commitment to keep accelerating throughout his innings. Armed with a pronounced backfoot trigger movement, Samson has allowed himself to get behind such deliveries on bouncy South African wickets and hit even rising deliveries for sixes of the off side.
That’s why he could strike at 233.3 against back-of-a-length deliveries, which are generally hard to face on such tracks. Moreover, he has been absolutely punishing against spin in the series, scoring at 211.4 against all spinners combined in the series.
With 216 runs courtesy of two centuries in the series, Samson has fixed his spot at the top of the Indian batting for the foreseeable future.
In a recent Malayalam blockbuster, Aavesham, a mother always asks her son, who’s gone away to study in a big city, “Eda Mone, happy alle?” (Hey son, are you happy?).
After all the ups and downs and the lack of opportunities in Samson’s career in the last few years, you almost want to ask him, “Sanju chetta, now happy alle?” (Sanju bro, are you happy now?).
Tilak Varma, the new India number three
Batting positions, where you have played the best cricket of your career, are always hard to let go of. When it comes to Suryakumar, that number three spot is where he proved that he is an all-time T20I great. So, when Suryakumar, the skipper, allowed the 22-year-old Tilak to bat in his spot, he wasn’t just sacrificing something small.
But boy, did Tilak make the most of that opportunity!
One overseas T20I century at that age is stupendous for a batter. To have two in back-to-back games is really, really special, and Tilak has proved in this series against South Africa that he is indeed a worthy candidate for that spot.
280 runs in four innings at a strike rate of 198.58 speaks for itself. However, what was most pleasing to see in this Player of the Series-worthy performance from the young left-hander was his penchant for finding gaps in the field through sheer ingenuity and precision. Ball tracking data shows that his footwork and crease movement have been impeccable, as he’s been able to nail his slogs, cuts, pulls and reverse sweeps better than the average T20I batter.
With his stocks only predicted to rise as he attains a key position in the Mumbai Indians batting as well, we might officially be entering the Tilak at three era, which promises to be an edge-of-the-seat blockbuster if this South Africa series was anything to go by.
Arshdeep Singh, the new pace King
In the absence of spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, who’s in Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Arshdeep not only took up the mantle of leader of the attack but also showed that he’s a worthy deputy to the modern great.
It’s a testament to the growth of this tall left-arm seamer from Punjab that he has been able to add new weapons to his already excellent swing bowling skills. Take that delivery to Heinrich Klassen in the fourth T20I, for instance, where he got the ball to first move away with the angle from over the wicket and then got it to sharply jag back in almost like a left-arm spinner who’s bowling at 135 kmph. Klaasen’s bat was still in Cape Town as he attempted to meet the ball in Johannesburg.
That’s why his eight wickets in the series, the best for any pacer on show, reflect the fast-paced growth we have seen in his bowling ever since the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia. He bowled his four overs for just 20 runs and picked two wickets when India needed him to be near perfect in the T20 World Cup final.
Now, even when Bumrah isn’t there to throw an arm around when things go awry, the 25-year-old has shown enough maturity to be called the spearhead of the attack in his absence.
Varun Chakravarthy 2.0 is elite
When you are a T20I spinner, every dot ball you bowl is a shout of resistance against a format and a system that is hell-bent on making your existence obsolete.
As if that wasn’t enough, when Chakravarthy played T20I cricket for India before his return to the side against Bangladesh in a home series, he was made the scapegoat for a loss for no fault of his and was dropped from the side for three years and more.
However, the Tamil Nadu spinner went back to the drawing board. Instead of sulking around like a normal human being, he developed more weapons for his arsenal, making him indispensable to any side he plays for.
Ever since his return to the Indian side, we have seen exactly that as he combined his stock delivery (an off break) with a lot more overspin (which allows more backward rotation on the ball). This not only added more bounce to his deliveries but also allowed them to dip on the batter, which made it hard to line him up. He also worked on a leg cutter-like delivery that straightens after coming in initially.
He employed these new weapons against the Proteas to great effect on tracks that weren’t tailor-made for his kind of bowling. He picked 12 wickets in the series, including a fifer, which is the most for any Indian bowler in a bilateral T20I series. Along with Kuldeep Yadav and Ravi Bishnoi, he forms a formidable spin trio for India as they build towards a home T20 World Cup in 2026.
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