India is involved with Zimbabwe in the second ODI where the Indian bowlers were once again bang on their money, leaving the hosts struggling despite a resolute show from two of their best batters, Sikandar Raza and Sean Williams.
Even though the result of the contest would anyway fall in India’s favour given the dearth of runs on the card from the Zimbabweans coupled with the lack of sting in their bowling unit unless some miraculous turnaround manifests, pundits believe that they could have opted to bat first that could have given them a few pointers to take a good look at. Here are three reasons why India could have batted first against Zimbabwe in the second contest of the series.
#1 More game time for KL Rahul
Despite Rahul’s fall early in the second innings, the Indian captain for the tour will need some batting time before he steps into the Asia Cup. He has been out of international cricket for a while and it would have been a decent move for him to walk out in the middle and express himself instead of worrying about what were the possible numbers on the card.
With Bumrah out of the tournament, India will have to rely a lot more on their batting trio than their preached all-round dominance that will be led by Rohit, Virat and KL Rahul. Virat has struggled in recent times to get runs on the board which will be a major bugbear for the Indian unit. Alongside this with India’s opening encounter being against Pakistan, the batters will have to brave some crazy bounce and swing. India batting first could have given some more game time to Rahul that would have done a world of good to his confidence.
#2 India could have experimented more with the batting unit
Batting second in the contest against Zimbabwe would hardly give you the numbers to climb up. Hence, batting first would have allowed the Indian batters to express themselves and probably try out few belligerent knocks of their own. With Rahul, Ishan Kishan, Dhawan and Gill in the side, it would have been a nice test of compatibility.
Maybe, they could have also thrown Deepak Hooda early in the innings to see some big strokes and put up the numbers faster than ever that the seasoned campaigners coming out in the middle which would have been a nice probe of their batting strength and adaptability that somehow didn’t see the light of the day.
#3 The pitch had its own trick going that would have challenged the batters
The surface at Harare had been doing its own trick and could have been a fine test of the Indian batters with the movement drifting left and right. As we saw in the second innings Chivanga pulled off a few nasty inswingers that almost injured the keeper, the batters had to adjust themselves early in the innings and be patient before they could bring out the heavy artillery.
For the ones going to UAE from here, this would have been a test of character too. Especially the early fall of Rahul showed that he needed more confidence which will be a dire need for him when India travels to the UAE shores with the surfaces having a special proclivity for the bowlers.
