Indian cricket has been flourishing for a while now. It has been a steady rise from also-rans to a cricketing behemoth which dominates the world game. On the field, Australia can stake the claim of being the best, but when taken as a whole, it is India’s commercial wheels on which the world game runs. Not that they’ve done badly on the field either.
At the time of writing, the Indian ODI side have handed another 4-wicket defeat to England in the second of a three-match ODI series. The Indian T20 team has just finished a 4-1 thrashing of England in the T20 leg.
The ghosts of the Test series losses to New Zealand and Australia seem to be buried. When the Indian test team lost all three matches to New Zealand at home, all hell broke loose. It ended a decade-long winning streak at home. The more die-hard fans amongst us thought of the series loss as an aberration. We looked forward to the next series Down Under, where the test team had retained the Border Gavaskar Trophy on the last two tours. They had been winning at home against Australia since 2014 too.
The series in Australia this time around began with a famous win at Perth, against the odds. It fuelled hope amongst fans that the series loss to New Zealand was indeed a one-off. It turned out to be a false dawn, as they went on to lose the series 3-1. They had their chances but were mostly playing catch-up. It could well have been 2-2, as India had a chance at Sydney, but the absence of their star bowler Jasprit Bumrah due to back spasms put paid to that chance.
The test team has played the final of the World Test Championship in the last two cycles, but these two debilitating series losses knocked them out of the WTC reckoning. India ended up third in the final standings for the 2023-25 cycle, still among the top test sides though it was a bit of a climb down from the previous two cycles.
The Indian T20 side, on the other hand, have of late done extremely well under the captaincy of Surya Kumar Yadav, despite his own lean form with the bat. The team expectedly beat Bangladesh at home, and then went to South Africa. This series was supposed to be a tough test as the Proteas are a very tough side to beat at home. The first two games were split, but India ran away with the last two to win the series 3-1. At this stage Sanju Samson had three hundreds in seven games.
The recent emergence of Abhishek Sharma, the consolidation of youngsters like Rinku Singh and Tilak Verma, the consistently rising career of Arshdeep Singh, the brilliance of Sanju Samson, the beguiling mystery spin of Varun Chakravarthy, all of these have contributed to the team’s recent success. They carried the same confidence into the England series at home and thrashed them 4-1. The Indian T20 team is at the very top now, in the rankings as well as confidence. As of now, the T20 format is India’s strongest cricket suit.
The ODI team isn’t lagging far behind either. They are two games up in a 3- match series being played in preparation for the Champions Trophy. After a loss in the final of the ODI World Cup 2023, a tournament which India dominated till they froze on the final stage, they haven’t played much of this format. The ease with which India have beaten England in both the games played so far, by identical 4-wicket margins, makes them serious contenders for the Champions Trophy. Rohit has stormed back to form with a smashing 119 against England.
India’s games are in Dubai, where the conditions aren’t really to India’s liking, but they have the experience and personnel to do well there. The big-ticket India-Pakistan game is slated for February 23, and although on paper India looks the more settled side, one can never really count Pakistan out. They are the defending champions and have a lot to prove. Social media is already agog with the frenzy associated with India-Pak games, and the game was sold out within minutes. Although the tournament begins with the New Zealand-Pakistan game in Karachi, all eyes are on Dubai.
The game in India is in good health and the future looks promising. Winning the Champions Trophy would be the icing on the cake.
It is really a good time to be an Indian cricket fan…!
About author: Amarinder Sangha is a former Punjab (India) cricketer now based at Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He writes frequently on national, international issues related to the sport.
