Changemakers 2024: Men-In-Blue Go from Being Chokers to Champions

At the time this article started writing itself, there was a sense of despondency surrounding Indian cricket. The men in blue had been decimated 0–3 by New Zealand at home. By the time the article finished, a young Indian squad had defeated the South Africans 3–1 at a T20 International (T20I) series on their home turf. Such is sport.

And therein lies the challenge of evaluating the annual performance of a team in a monthly magazine. By the time these pages go to print, India will have played their first Test of a five-match series in Australia. And the events down under may well change the perspective here.

Team India started 2024 on a high. Early in the year, it won a Test series 4–1 against England. In June, India won the T20 World Cup, ending a decade-long wait for an International Cricket Council (ICC) trophy. Then, India won the T20I series against Zimbabwe 4–1, against Sri Lanka 2–0 and then against Bangladesh 3–0.

Purple Patch

Team India has played 11 Tests this year and won seven of them, a win rate of 63%. In T20Is, India has won 21 out of the 25 matches it has played at a staggering win rate of 84%. This is a significant improvement from last year when Team India played 23 T20Is and won 15 of them, a win rate of 65%.

It is only in one-day internationals (ODIs) that the team has suffered. While India won 27 out of the 35 ODIs it played last year, at a win rate of 77%, this year, the team has played only three ODIs, lost two of them while one ended in no result.

Team India also won 14 T20Is overseas as well as the only Test it played outside the country. This year, in fact, has been better for India in Test cricket than the previous year, even though the team emerged as runners-up in the ICC World Test Championship in 2023. While India won seven out of its 11 Tests this year, it had won only three out of eight the previous year.

Yes, the team did post its lowest Test total at home, at 46, but this is the same year, the men in blue posted eight 200+ totals in T20I matches, breaking their own record of seven such totals in 2023.

New Stars on the Horizon

The most impressive aspect of Indian men’s cricket right now is the effortless transition that is underway. Rohit Sharma announced his retirement from T20I cricket immediately after the World Cup win. Suryakumar Yadav has taken Sharma’s place in style and seems to be encouraging his team to play fearless, aggressive, and yet selfless cricket.

Suresh Menon, sports journalist and author of Champions–How the World Cup Was Won (2011), says, “We handled the transition pretty well when Sachin Tendulkar and other cricketers of that era left, we suddenly had the likes of Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara coming in. I think the transition now will also be pretty smooth because we have players like Shubman Gill, Yashashvi Jaiswal, young medium pacers, [Jasprit] Bumrah is not likely to finish anytime soon. We have a decent transitional team ready.”

With Washington Sundar, Ramandeep Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Arshdeep Singh, Rituraj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Sanju Samson in form, Indian cricket seems to have arrived at its next era. Tilak Sharma’s stupendous performance at the No. 3 spot in South Africa is a great relief for the team.

Menon thinks the team should consider playing Tilak Sharma in red-ball cricket soon. “He seems to be an excellent judge of length. I would not hesitate to fly him down to Australia to play at No. 3. He is young. There is a great deal of talk about pushing a person into the big leagues when they are young, but the fact is you play a man when he is in form. I don’t see him as purely a white-ball cricketer. I think he is going to be an all-formats player.”

Rishabh Pant has come back as a trailblazer after he met with a near-fatal accident in 2022, according to Menon. “At the time, I thought he would never play again, and it would be lucky if he walked. But look at the man. His strength of character. You are looking at Pant in a leadership role in the coming years,” he says.

A new band of coaches have joined the team. Gautam Gambhir, a member of the 2007 T20I World Cup winning team, has taken over as head coach from Rahul Dravid. Former South African cricketer Morne Morkel has taken over from Paras Mhambrey as bowling coach.

What happens in Australia will be important because it may well start the writing of the next chapter of the story of Indian cricket. There may well be some cricketers who will consider calling the end of their careers once the series gets over. It is a good thing that new characters stand ready. Menon says, “India has the players, it is just a question of getting the combination right.”