The Worm Turns For India's Greatest Generation

Eleven years ago this week, India beat England by 5 runs in a 20 over match to win the ICC Champions Trophy Final at Edgbaston. They made 129/7, and kept England down to 124/8. It was their last ICC title (and remains their last ICC ODI title). England had reached 110/4 in 17.2 overs, and needed 20 in 16 balls with Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara batting. Morgan and Bopara had added 64 in 52 balls. England managed 4/15 in those last 16 balls.

English ODI sides of that era were built to avoid precisely this type of lower order decline. The five wickets to follow Morgan and Bopara included Jos Buttler, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, James Tredwell and James Anderson. Apart from Anderson, all could bat. But they didn’t that day.

Since that heist at Edgbaston, India have been at the receiving end three times. In the 2017 Champions Trophy final, Fakhar Zaman and Mohammad Hafeez took Pakistan to 338/4. Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah conceded 0/205 in 27 overs that day. Zaman and his opening partner Azhar Ali (59[71]) survived 40 false shots between them. In India’s chase, the top six - Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav - survived 17 between them.

At Old Trafford in the 2019 World Cup Semi Final against New Zealand, it was a similar story. The New Zealand top six survived 59 false shots between them, including 23 for Ross Taylor (74[90]) and 16 for Kane Williamson (67[95]). In response, the Indian top six survived 25.

In Ahmedabad in 2023, it was a different story. India were put in by Pat Cummins on a dry wicket and limited to 240. When India bowled, they had some success with the new ball thanks to the marvellous Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. But their spin twins - Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav - who had induced 11 and 13 false shots per 10 overs during the tournament until that day, barely got a ball past the bat. They conceded 0/99 in their 20 overs and beat the bat only 13 times combined in the Ahmedabadi dew. Travis Head hammered a brilliant hundred and Australia won by six wickets after losing three wickets within the first seven overs of their innings.

At the Kensington Oval yesterday, a similar story seemed to unfold. Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant fell to their first false shot. But Virat Kohli, having been dismissed 7 times in 22 false shots in the tournament so far, would survive 13. It allowed him to do what he is better at than any batter of the limited overs era - anchor the innings. Kohli played 59 of the 113 balls bowled at India while he was at the wicket and managed 76. He didn’t hit a single boundary from the fourth ball of the fourth over and the first ball of the eighteenth. In the 18th and 19th over, he plundered 26 in 11 balls. At the other end, India’s flexible and versatile middle order quartet - Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya - managed 81 in 51 between them. Kohli had provided respectability by conceding much of the innings from his end to the South Africans. India finished below 9 runs per over.

Respectability should not have been enough, especially since the South African top order had superior hitting ability to India’s. They also had a long tail, unlike England ten years ago with Tabraiz Shamsi, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje as genuine tailenders, and Keshav Maharaj only a little bit better than that. They were chasing a middling total, and had several ways in which they could complete the chase. They could have all gone for it, and it could well have come off. They could have let one of their batters drop anchor like Kohli did, and still chase 177. In the event, Aiden Markram - their Virat Kohli - was dismissed early.

South Africa’s brilliant hitters were on course to finish the match in about 18 overs thanks to superb all round hitting ability of Quinton de Kock and Tristan Stubbs, and Heinrich Klaasen’s otherworldly ability to hit spinners off their length. Klaasen has reinterpreted the meaning of this traditional phrase. In cricket, hitting the spinners off their length means stepping out or using the depth of the crease, and disrupting the bowler’s length. Klaasen has developed a beautiful swinging arc which helps him generate enough power to deposit the spinner for six without needing to get to the pitch of the ball or using the depth of the crease. His footwork is designed to make room and provide a base for that powerful bat-swing. It is a masterful innovation of the T20 age. Klaasen took 38(14) against Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja.

It wasn’t enough. South Africa needed 30 in five overs with six wickets in hand. But Rohit Sharma rubbed his magic lamp and made his wish. And the genie delivered two overs for six runs and wicket. The wicket was his second of the innings. Both deliveries were unplayable. At the other end, Hardik Pandya got Klaasen to feather a harmless delivery wide off the off stump to the wicket keeper. It was the sort of dismissal which gets the superstitious minded among the fans to wonder if something might be afoot.

The three Indian quicks collected 7/58 in 11 overs between them. The three spinners collected 1/106 in 11 overs. In retrospect, the over or so which Marco Jansen seemed to need to find his length cost South Africa a dozen extra runs which proved to be too dear. But it is impossible to pin the responsibility on any one over. For instance, India played 31 false shots in their innings and collected 28 runs from these (they played only 31 thanks to Kohli who played only 13 in his 59 balls). South Africa played 39 and collected 21. The difference in lucky runs is identical to margin of the result.

India were not the best team in this tournament. Their hitting was underpowered. But their side was also constructed keeping in mind the conditions expected in the West Indies (and some deference to two distinguished players). It is not difficult to imagine a better Indian T20 side which might have used Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal. That way lies the future now that Kohli and Rohit Sharma have both announced their retirement from T20 international cricket.

Kohli’s generation of India players has been the best India have ever had. It is their body of work between June 23, 2013 and June 29, 2024, which marks them out as one of the greatest all-format teams in the history of the game. In these eleven years, India have won 149 out of 231 ODIs, 123 out of 178 T20 internationals and 59 out of 106 Test matches. It is a record of mastery no prior generation of Indian players have even approached. That it has come in a hyper-competitive era in which great bowlers proliferate, has been remarkable. They have been the best all-format, all-conditions team in the world during this period.

The World Cup Trophy will satisfy some of their fans who inexplicably consider this one arbitrary fixture to be of exceptional significance. Everything in the previous paragraph would be just as true if Klaasen had not feathered Pandya to the keeper and just missed instead. A cricketer’s worth cannot hang on the outcome of a handful of deliveries in this way. This is so precisely because the basic fact of cricket is that neither the bowler, nor the batter, can guarantee the outcome of any delivery. Quality becomes evident in the long run.

In the long run, Kohli has been a square peg in a round hole in T20 cricket, and India have been underpowered in the hitting department. Just as, in the long run, Kohli has been one of the two or three greatest batters of his era in the two longer formats. In the long run, India have been the best team in the world. The pleasure of winning one more trophy was added to this great achievement yesterday. It took a lot of luck and one genie.

For me, within the privilege of being able to watch India play high quality cricket from one to eleven whenever they take the field, getting to see forty five minutes of that genie is the greatest pleasure in cricket.