Alarm Bells Of Sorts For India As ICC World Cup Looms Large

The ICC World Cup is only a little over six months away and the first alarm bells have been heard by India after Australia trounced the Rohit Sharma led home team 2-1 in the three match series. This was Australia’s sixth ODI series win in India’s backyard since 1984 when Kim Hughes led Australia beat India 3-0, with two matches ending in a no result show. It was also India’s first ODI series defeat in India in 48 months. A nervous top and middle order came a cropper to left arm fast bowler Mitchell Starc in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam, but the Hardik Pandya led side rallied to put it across the visitor in Mumbai. Pandya’s stock appears to have gone up after his bowling and batting display at Chennai’s Chepauk. Dropped from the Test team for the last two matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, KL Rahul topped the batting average with 116 runs in three matches, but others did not reach the three figure aggregate. Apart from its powerlessness to deal with Starc, India’s new ball operators could not stop Mitchell Marsh’s “go after the bowling” approach and his 194 runs. It’s going to be a long drawn out World Cup in the October heat and a bit of cooler weather in November, but it looks as though India would like to look at itself as the underdog, not the favourite!