Falling short of ground, expectations
Four run-outs in two matches. In Dharamsala, India got away with it as Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli took on the South African attack after Shikhar Dhawan was dismissed in the fourth over. Ambati Rayudu, too, was run out first ball. But that was at the back end of the innings and India had already reached a good total.
In Cuttack, the hosts couldn’t recover after Kohli and Rohit perished. The former pushed the first ball he faced to deep mid-wicket and was about a foot short of his ground after he belatedly turned for a second. Chris Morris’s throw was flat and AB de Villiers whipped the bails in a flash. Rohit challenged David Miller despite playing off the back foot and fell prey to a direct hit. After the game Dhoni spoke about the run-outs as he described India’s batting meltdown. “You can convert 1.8 runs or 1.9 runs into 2, but not 1.75 or 1.7.”
Harbhajan Singh, however, stressed that “challenging” the South African fielders is part of the team strategy which is unlikely to be changed. “I don’t know if we are changing anything. In this format you’ve to push the fielders and obviously we’ve got some quick runners between the wickets. We’ve the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni himself who are all brilliant runners between the wickets. The last game was not a perfect game for us. We lost two wickets to run-outs and they (South Africa) fielded brilliantly. We took our chances against their fielders but it didn’t go our way.
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Déjà vu
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“In Dharamsala it was a different story; we had two runs for the taking most of the times. We wanted to challenge their fielders and that’s what you call playing positive cricket,” the senior off-spinner said ahead of the final T20 international.
Going back to Dhoni and his assessment, can mathematics — down to decimal numbers — take precedence over impulse when it comes to running between the wickets, especially in T20s? In real match situations, players often tend to follow their instincts. David Miller says run-outs also depend on the playing area — space available in the outfield. “Here in Kolkata, being a smaller boundary, there’s going to be a lot less twos and more ones. It’s a ground where there can be run-outs. A little fumble here and there when batters going for a two may just give a chance. Hopefully we can see some more run-outs tomorrow,” the South African batsman explained.
He, however, added that rather than analysing the Indian players’ running between the wickets, they were working hard on their fielding in the build-up to the series/matches. “To be honest, in the lead-up to the series, we’ve been working really hard on our fielding. We take pride in our fielding. It’s just looking at the venue and a day before the game we find out from where it’s easy to throw etc… A lot of time in India, you can throw it to the keeper in one bounce because the grounds are hard. We just got to assess the situation.”
He was happy to get Rohit out in the last game. “I picked up the ball and just tried to throw the stumps down. If it happens, it happens. We need moments like that.”
