Can the Indians recover like wounded tigers and pull one back at Vishakapatnam in the second ODI against the West Indies? That exactly is what they must be feeling like after being dealt with the kind of thrashing on Sunday that the present team has not had to endure for a long time. Playing at home, against opponents several places below them in the ICC rankings and rated as no-hopers in the eyes of the vast majority of cricket experts Virat Kohli and his men were simply outgunned and outplayed in all departments of the game. A margin of eight wickets with 2.1 overs to spare is a defeat difficult to digest and while one must appreciate the brilliance of Shai Hope and Shimron Hetmyer there are questions that the Indian team management must address immediately otherwise the series could well be lost with one match yet to be played.
It is well known that India are over dependent on the top order to come good. And while fortunately the top three have fired fairly consistently on the rare occasion they have failed the Indians have crumbled to defeat. The most striking example of late was the World Cup semifinal against New Zealand. Chasing a target of 240 the Indians were reduced to five for three and the match as a contest was over then and there. A gallant rearguard action by the late order saw the Indians reach 221 but realistically speaking there was never really any chance after the shocking start.
At Chennai on Sunday the Indians did well to reach 287 in 50 overs after the first two wickets had fallen for 25 and the most heartening aspect of the batting was the fact that Rishabh Pant finally came good and with Shreyas Iyer who has for all practical purposes solved the vexed No 4 problem put on a century partnership that made sure that India would be able to put up a challenging total particularly on a sluggish pitch.
Hardly anyone could have bargained however for the brilliance of Hope and Hetmyer. In keeping with the reputation of the West Indies which are known to either scale the heights or plumb the depths the two did pretty much what they liked with the Indian bowling line-up which was badly handicapped by having four specialists and two part timers. The danger of such a policy is that if one of the main bowlers has a poor day then runs can be freely had of three bowlers. That is exactly what happened with Mohammed Shami being off colour and Shivam Dube and Kedar Jadhav conceding 79 runs from 8.5 overs. The bowling has to be strengthened with the inclusion of Yuzvendra Chahal who can take the place of Dube. The West Indian vulnerability against leg spin bowling has been well documented and he and Kuldeep Yadav work admirably in tandem and the duo can prove to be a winning combination as they have been so often.