Surya Sprinkles Gold Dust On Leaden India

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This is the saying and it is meant with no disrespect to either humans or dogs. At the core of this is not teaching, because you can teach anything to anyone of any age, but the issue is whether they can learn or not, at the stage they are in.

This is the problem India is facing at the moment in trying to play a different brand of Twenty20 cricket. In 50-over cricket, your best batsmen always played at the top, one behind another, so that they could face the most number of overs, build an innings and give the team the best chance to put up a big total.

In Twenty20 cricket, however, it is often not about how many runs you score but about how quickly you score them.

A classic illustration of this was India’s 40-run win over Hong Kong in the Asia Cup, which made them the second team, after Afghanistan, to qualify for the second round of the tournament.

KL Rahul, trying to find his feet after a near three-month injury layoff, could not come close to expressing himself or playing fearlessly, two catchphrases that have become a part of the team’s lexicon.

In the early part of his innings, he was taking safe singles to long-on or long off, laying a base. But this foundation he was building was at the cost of opportunities for other batsmen in the team. Rahul, who averages nearly 40, at a strike rate of almost 141 in 58 T20 Internationals, played only one aggressive shot in the PowerPlay, a six off a free hit in which he had no chance of losing his wicket.

When he ended his innings, troubled and painful as it was, Rahul had scored 36 off 39 balls. Break it down a little more and you’ll see he played out 16 dot balls, ran 18 singles, and three twos. This was a template of how not to bat in T20 cricket.

At one level watching him play this way was difficult, because he is so much better than this, as his overall record suggests. But at another, it was almost annoying, for in T20 cricket, if you’re not getting the job done, you may as well try and play a big shot and get out, giving someone else the chance to take the game forward, than occupy the crease and consume deliveries.

It did not help that Rahul’s go slow put pressure on the batsman at the other end. Rohit Sharma possibly overcompensated, and paid the price, going for 21 off 13. If he did not feel the pressure to score for two rather than one, Rohit may have waited for the right ball to hit, rather than manufacturing a shot to be caught at mid-on.

With Rohit gone, Virat Kohli joined Rahul, and between the two they showed all the aggression and fearlessness of a guinea pig that just spotted an eagle circling. The pair both played safe cricket, Kohli attempting once in a way to play cheeky shots, without them ever coming off. To Kohli’s credit, this innings of 59 off 44 (and he was only scoring at a run a ball for the longest time) was more assured than his last. At least he was not inside-edging every few deliveries, at least he was not playing halfheartedly and at least he was running between the wickets as a man possessed.

When Rahul fell, Suryakumar Yadav walked in, with Kohli on 33. First ball, he walked across and swept for four behind square. Rinse, and repeat the next ball. The third ball was banged for a hard-run brace.

All of a sudden, the momentum had shifted. To Kohli’s credit, he did not try to match Surya. To India’s gain, Kohli subdued his ego and simply fed Surya the strike.

While there may not have been too many overs left in the game, there were enough balls for someone to make a significant impact. Surya was that man.

On a subsequent attempt to set himself up for a sweep, Surya was in position, outside off, one knee bent, ready to sweep or shovel the ball to the leg side, when the bowler adjusted and sent the ball down wide outside off. In a last-second adjustment, Surya opened up his upper body from the same position, freed his arms and creamed the ball over cover for six. This is a shot that you might see on the streets of Chembur in a tennis-ball match, not an international fixture.

But, as Surya struck the ball more fluently and easily, he brought the street game back to professional sport. It was not so much that his shots were audacious, but that they came at a time when the team was in strife, and he played them with an air of nonchalance, chewing his gum and smiling when close wide calls did not go his way.

Surya clattered an unbeaten 68 off 26, and in the process went past Kohli comfortably. But, while his innings took India from a middling score to a match-winning one against a team such as Hong Kong, who lack experience of playing in such high-profile matches, it also papered over cracks that are ever widening.

In the short term, the win was a good one to have in the bag, but a long-term outlook would reveal that Rahul and Kohli used up valuable deliveries that might have been utilised better by those who did not get a bat. Rishabh Pant, playing in place of Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, and Ravindra Jadeja, who played a fine hand in the match against Pakistan, were all left sitting in the dressing room cooling their heels.

In Twenty20 cricket, if you want to express yourself and play fearlessly, it’s not enough to pay lip service to this brand of batting. You have to embrace it enough to be willing to fail in the process of trying. Or, like Surya, you should be mentally sorted enough, and still have that mad streak, to treat an international match like a game in the backyard.

After the match, Surya repeatedly made it a point to say how much fun he had had when batting. While watching him was certainly fun, he also taught a valuable lesson: in T20 cricket, if you’re not having fun, you’re already losing, whatever the result may be.

All that’s left is to see if others can learn from this.