Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy debut didn’t start the way he’d hoped. Series losses in Ireland and England put him under pressure as questions arose about his leadership on the international stage.
However, things quickly turned around as the side racked up a 10-match winning streak, looking to eclipse their own record of 12 for full member teams. And while they are without Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy, they have enough firepower to dominate the West Indies.
Having won the opening match of the five-game series comfortably – riding a superb unbeaten century from Shreyas – India will look to maintain the momentum in Ranchi on Friday.
The focus will be on Jharkhand’s Ishan Kishan, who has been in superb form of late in all formats.
“Whichever ground Ishan plays on, he treats it as his home ground. That’s how he plays,” assistant coach Sitanshu Kotak said. “Since the World Cup, he has been doing really well for India. When he was young, even when I worked with him in the IPL for Gujarat Lions, he played aggressively. If anything, he is much more mature now.”
The West Indies need the perfect game to be able to beat India in India. The only two occasions they have been able to do so in 12 attempts in T20Is are when they chased targets.
Bowling coach Ravi Rampaul on Thursday urged his batters to “rotate the
strike” and rely on their better players of spin to “counter” India’s three-pronged spin-bowling attack.
The visitors made a promising start in the opening T20I in Lucknow but lost three wickets in the Powerplay – Kamil Pooran, Shimron Hetmyer and Rovman Powell – before India’s spinners tightened the screws in the middle overs to bowl them out for 171 in 19.1 overs.
“We see that when they bat through the middle, we put up big, challenging scores. So obviously, for our better players of spin, it’s about batting longer into the innings,” Rampaul said on Thursday.
Rampaul admitted that the repeated failure of his bowlers in execution can be frustrating.
“Sometimes it can be a little frustrating when we come up with plans and the bowlers don’t execute,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a high-pressure situation when you play as a bowler. Even in these conditions against the Indian batting line-up, the bowlers will be under pressure.”
West Indies flexed their batting muscle in the ODIs, but aside from captain Shai Hope’s 52 at the top, and Sherfane Rutherford’s power-packed fifty in the middle, it was a string of poor scores on Tuesday. Hope later described the batting as “chaotic”.
Unless the batters can get back among the runs in spin-friendly conditions, they will continue to struggle.