The India of the last two games, against Afghanistan and Scotland, have been such fun to watch. Perhaps, their designs have been given a boost by the quality of the opposition they have come up against in the last few days. Perhaps, they feel the need to prove a point to themselves, as much as to the outside world, that they should not be defined by what happened in the first week. Perhaps, they have been freed up mentally because they have nothing to lose.
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Where their feet were cast in lead and their mind encumbered by self-doubt, they are now bold, entertaining, unfettered, free to express themselves.
That said, the India of the last two matches have been unrecognisable from the fumbling, juddering outfit of earlier. With the benefit of hindsight, India might have been better off playing one of the ‘lesser’ lights – Scotland or Namibia – earlier on, but there’s no gainsaying what purpose that might have achieved if they had adopted a similar, wait-and-watch course as against Pakistanis and New Zealand. Such was the itinerary that India’s two toughest matches came right at the beginning. If India are still clinging on to the slightest, most fraying thread of hope, it’s primarily because of how matches in Group 2 of the Super 12s have been scheduled. It’s just that at the crunch, in an event of the magnitude of the T20 World Cup, they faltered badly not once but twice, pushing themselves closer to the exit door at the first time of asking. It isn’t as if their short-form game has been any less entertaining or rewarding. In Australia at the start of the year, at home against England immediately thereafter and in Old Blighty in the summer, they played such exhilarating cricket that defeat to New Zealand in the final of the World Test Championship seemed like the aberration it was. It’s as if they are elevated by the theatre of the longer version, as if the romantic in them is roused into action. India have embraced all these positive traits and more in the last 10 months, most notably in Test cricket where they have had the most amazing time. India romped past Scotland to do their part in keeping T20 World Cup semi-final chances alive.
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