India at Champions Trophy 2013 - A review

‘Sir’ Ravindra Jadeja continued his good all-round form, making crucial quick runs against South Africa and England, was brilliant in the field, and took plenty of wickets to finish off as the tournament’s most successful bowler. His hard work has been the main reason for the change from him being a subject of mockery to now universal respect and admiration, and he deserves a lot of credit for this. Succeeding, when achieved against the odds and expectations, is never easy.

It was a good tournament for Ravichandran Ashwin with the ball, as he continues his development as a fine world-class off-spinner. He is also developing well as a neat slip fielder. Bhuvneshwar Kumar impressed everyone with his economical opening spells, and regularly scalped the wickets of the opening batsmen. Ishant Sharma was his usual enigmatic self. He leaked runs many times, which should concern the team management. But his 2 wickets off consecutive balls changed the course of the final, and his performance in the semifinal was impressive too. Umesh Yadav was pacy and picked up some important wickets, but is another one who needs to look at avoiding freebies to the opposition.

The fact that none of the pacemen who featured in the World Cup 2011 final were part of the Champions Trophy squad, highlights the need to nurture and develop Bhuvneshwar and Umesh properly, and not lose them like those before them, who came, showed potential, and then fizzled out.

From the team that played World Cup 2011 final, only Dhoni, Kohli and Raina featured in the Champions Trophy and that shows the amount of transition that has happened in just over 2 years. This is a younger and more athletic squad, and the improvement in fielding standard was there to see for everyone. The likes of Raina, Jadeja, Rohit, Kohli and Karthik were livewires on the field. Credit must go to the selectors and the support staff too for their efforts in the development of this team.

The aim of the team should be to continue their ruthless streak in ODIs, and also extend it to the other formats, and target to defend the World Cup at Australia/New Zealand in 2015. From what we saw at the Champions Trophy 2013, we seem to be very much on the right track.