Notes and Projects 📚📚

It was the series-decider in Bangalore. A washout in the first game and with a win in the next meant India could take the series 2-0, or South Africa could force a draw. While India have time and again proven to be adroit chase-masters, their woes of setting big targets, and defending them, have been their well-documented Achilles heel.

And in Bangalore that day, they'd opted to bat, but their zeal for going after a target of over 200 clashed with their otherwise cautious approach, and on a pitch that didn't allow it, only managed a below-par 139. South Africa ended up chasing it down with ease.

A little over two months since, in another series-decider, this time in Mumbai on a very true pitch, the tables turned. It was a confident West Indies unit who had just thumped India by eight wickets two days ago. The wicket had tons of runs in it, but only one team milked it for what it was worth. India were asked to bat in this case and set West Indies 241 to win. They got the balance right.

In the recent past, trapped in the uncertainty between a cautious start and launching an all-out attack, India's ambition had got the better of them on most occasions. Virat Kohli had even stated that they aimed to go for too many and end up falling short as it was out of their comfort zone. Even in Thiruvananthapuram, they started conservatively, lost wickets upfront and only managed 170.

On Wednesday (December 11), however, it was different. There was a strange sense of urgency. It was similar to West Indies' game-plan of the need to find the boundary every other ball. The initial waiting game had gone out of the park, literally and figuratively. And it was a batsman who's often found that perfect middle-ground between all-out attack and positive manoeuvring a lesser challenge than most peers who set up the Indian juggernaut.

Such was KL Rahul's fluency that boundaries came thick and fast. He caressed the covers, cut skillfully and innovated as he went along. It meant a team that's been criticized of late for playing a risk-free game in a risk-based format, much like what Rohit Sharma had asked for on the eve of the match, were prepared to take risks when necessary.

And courtesy Rahul, India scored a total of 70-plus runs at home in the powerplay for the first time in a decade. Such was the extent of their dominance that en route their 135-run stand, Rahul and Rohit batted Khary Pierre out of the attack; his two overs were taken for 35, and he didn't bowl again.

"We are looking to work on first innings whenever we have to bat (and) start the innings," said Rahul after the game. "At times, we start off thinking we want more than 200 or that's T20 cricket now a days, no total is enough, you always feel like you are 10-15 runs short... so at times we have tried to overachieve and when you batting first and setting a target that often happens, not just in T20 cricket but in any format, so it's a good learning for us and each game we play in we get an opportunity to bat first we learn something new and today was good confidence-booster for all of us. We can learn from this innings and we did a lot of things right and hopefully we can continue to do that more often and the results will go more our way when we bowl second or bat first."

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