Even though this season of the IPL may not be getting high TRPs like some of its predecessors, thanks to fan favorites Mumbai and Chennai hogging the bottom 2 places of the table, this has been one of the most intriguing and open seasons of the IPL so far. Newcomers Gujarat and Lucknow have smashed their way into the top 4 at the halfway stage, while everyone else is also still in the running for the playoff spots, except Mumbai realistically.
However, while the tournament looks alive and well with this stiff competition for the playoff spots, the performances so far must be very worrying for the Indian selectors, especially from their 2 stalwarts Captain Rohit Sharma and ex-Captain Virat Kohli. With half of the IPL gone, Rohit Sharma has managed to score 114 runs at an average of 16, while Kohli has done marginally better scoring 119 runs at an average approaching 20.
While Kohli has been bailed out by his teammates, especially the new Royal Challengers captain Faf du Plessis and their finisher Dinesh Karthik, Rohit’s struggles at the top of the order have been the major contributor to Mumbai Indians starting the season with 7 defeats in a row. To make matters worse, Rohit’s opening partner and another Indian international, Ishan Kishan has managed just 110 runs in his last 6 innings at a strike rate below run a ball. Even though Kishan started the tournament positively with an excellent 81*, it has been all downhill since then.
To compare these numbers to the rest of the regular Indian international contingent in IPL, we have KL Rahul being absolutely brilliant once again in the tournament with a century and a half-century already in this edition averaging 44 with a healthy strike rate. Newly appointed Kolkata skipper Shreyas Iyer has also been mighty impressive for his new franchise scoring at an average of nearly 40 with a strike rate pushing 150.
Surya Kumar Yadav, despite missing the first 2 matches of the IPL, is already among the top scorers for the season and he is scoring those runs at a strike rate well above 150. Perennial injury concern Hardik Pandya has also reacted well to his captaincy responsibilities at Gujarat and has been impressive with both bat and ball.
Dinesh Karthik has also taken the opportunity during this IPL to announce that his career is far from over and has made a very strong case to be a part of the Indian side as a finisher during the T20 World Cup. Several other batsmen on the fringes of Indian T20 selection, like Prithvi Shaw, Shivam Dube, Rahul Tripathi, Shubman Gill, and even old warhorse Shikhar Dhawan are performing much better than the veteran Rohit-Kohli duo.
If these 2 great servants of Indian cricket don’t manage to turn their form around during the second half of the IPL, should India pick a side for T20 internationals on the basis of reputation alone, or should they look towards in-form players who are scoring runs for fun during the IPL against international level bowlers?
The point to remember here is that the only time India did win the T20 World Cup, in 2007, India won when all the senior players like Tendulkar, Dravid, and Ganguly stayed at home and India took a very young side under a new captain to the tournament. Maybe returning to that formula won’t be the worse thing for India with their seniormost players being woefully out of form.
