T20 World Cup: Middle-order six-hitting a worry for India

After passing the New York leg with no casualties, India’s real test for an ICC title begins with the T20 World Cup Super 8s in the West Indies.

On the West Indies pitches, the batters will have a freer hand and Rohit Sharma’s emphasis on strengthening the middle order in the lead-up to the tournament will come to the fore.

As the Powerplay scoring rates plummet to an all-time low in the World Cup, teams with longer batting line-ups will likely go deeper into the tournament. Consequently, boundary-hitting through the middle-overs and the death (17th over to 20th over) will emerge as a crucial factor in the Super 8s and beyond.

41 games into the tournament, West Indies (191 runs with a 202.19 strike rate) and Australia (132 runs with a 170.42 strike rate), who have played all their games in the Caribbean, have emerged as the fastest scorers at the death. Interestingly, India have only played 32 deliveries in the slog overs, scoring 43 runs at the loss of three wickets.

India have not opted for a change in terms of their finishers, hoping Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja find their ‘zone’ as the tournament progresses. However, Hardik’s only outing with the bat was a short one (7 off 12 balls against Pakistan), and Jadeja has yet to score a run and nab a wicket.

India’s slog-hitters vs. rest

Since 2020, West Indies’ middle-order (5-8) batters have struck the most sixes, smashing a total of 275 sixes from 2794 deliveries — a maximum of every 10.16 balls. Second-placed England have struck 162 (13.5 balls per six), while India’s 157 sixes have come at a middling rate of 17.53 deliveries per maximum.

In the same period, Hardik and Jadeja have floated between positions 5-8 in T20Is. With Shivam Dube and Axar Patel in the mix in the World Cup, the senior duo have some cushion to carry out the middle-order biffing, but the quartet do not bear a solid, coherent status.
While Hardik has amassed 947 runs in the period, his 130.80 strike rate has impeded India’s big-hitting in the middle-order. Over 71 per cent (677) of these runs have come at number five, a position Hardik had adopted while transitioning to leadership roles but has now relinquished for the sake of India’s batting depth. Despite his six-hitting capabilities, Hardik has found it hard to smash from the get-go, exemplified by his record at No.6 and 7 – 317 runs at a 118.72 strike rate. Sixes haven’t been frequent either in this role, with the 30-year-old only hitting 13 sixes, one nearly every 20 balls.

Jadeja’s role as a batter remains a mystery in India’s T20I order, for the veteran southpaw has seldom turned up in the finishing role. Since 2020, Jadeja has only batted in 13 innings, scoring 279 runs while predominantly batting at No.7. Six-hitting has not been his ally. Jadeja has only struck seven sixes in this period even as it makes up for more than 50 per cent of his career total of 13 maximums.

While Hardik (34) does not make the list of the top five middle-order six-hitters since 2022, Jadeja (7) fails to make the top-five among his Indian peers in the same period.

Among players from full-member sides, West Indies’ Rovman Powell tops the charts with 51 sixes in the period, followed by Dasun Shanaka (39), Marcus Stoinis (38), Sikandar Raza (36), Moeen Ali (35) and David Miller (35).

The death-overs question

While the Hardik-Jadeja boundary-hitting conundrum persists, it is worth noting that India have recorded the most death-overs runs (2,529) at the highest strike rate (183.53) among the top 11 T20I sides since 2022.

However, India relied on their top-order batters Suryakumar Yadav (398) and Virat Kohli (211) to make the push at the death, with Hardik amassing 339 runs. Reserve Rinku Singh and Axar Patel form the top five, with Jadeja only managing 80 runs at the death in the period.

In the hope of breaking the shackles of their conservative approach, India have not been creative in terms of their personnel. India continue to hope Jadeja can come up clutch when it matters, as he did in the IPL 2023 final for the Chennai Super Kings to sheathe the rest of his subpar batting returns.

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