In this article, we’ll focus on India’s numbers while batting first only, try to identify areas and phases of play that India as a team need to work on, and look at the players who can potentially do those jobs.
The chat around some countries potentially fielding two international teams at the same time has been going on for quite a while now. This summer has seen that chat turn into reality as England and India have both managed to put together two completely separate squads for two different series each. While England have tasted massive success sweeping Pakistan 3–0 with their second-string side, India are about to start their journey with a second-string side of their own in Sri Lanka from July 18.
First up will be the ODI series starting on 18th July at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. As a new, albeit temporary chapter unfolds in Indian cricket under the leadership of Shikhar Dhawan and Rahul Dravid, let’s try to look at some numbers and trends regarding India’s batting in ODIs, post the 2019 World Cup. In this article, we’ll focus on India’s numbers while batting first only, try to identify areas and phases of play that India as a team need to work on, and look at the players who can potentially do those jobs.
The general trend these days in limited-overs cricket is to win the toss and bowl first, and it’s been rather successful as well. Since the 2019 World Cup, teams have won the toss and decided to field in 53.4% of all ODIs, winning 64.1% of those games. Whereas the games in which teams have decided to bat have been won only 55.9% of the time. India meanwhile, have not been completely floored by the bowl first strategy.
They have won only 4 tosses out of the 17 completed ODIs they’ve played in this period, deciding to bat in three of those, winning two and losing one. Here’s the overall breakdown of India’s performances while batting first post the 2019 World Cup, compared to all other Test-playing nations.
