India may wake up disappointed today as heavy rain could play a spoil sport against their match against Canada, providing Rohit Sharma’s team with an opportunity to rest before Super 8 commences in the Caribbean.
MIAMI: The Fort Lauderdale beach near Miami beach is awesome at few hundred feet above it. But when the pilot receives applause after landing through strong winds and rain you know immediately that there won’t be any cricket played here over the next few days
The rains haven’t left Florida in the last 72 hours, although its intensity has been a bit up and down. And that’s good enough for a washout of most of the matches at Broward Park, which includes India’s game against Canada on Saturday.
But while curators worked hard all day with sun playing hide and seek throughout Friday trying to get the outfield ready, there were showers predicted later in the afternoon and any more rain in the next 24 hours would allow Rohit Sharma’s boys to put their feet up for two days before they head to the West Indies for real deal – Super 8 stage.
Most of Indian players have been involved in continuous cricket. After two months of IPL came hard New York leg of T20 World Cup and this break might not exactly be unwanted. But, ideally, team management would have wanted a practice session plus some bit of game time on a decent pitch against not-so-threatening opposition.
This hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk even though India have won three out of three so far. The issue that will bother the team management is the form of Virat Kohli who is India’s opener for the tournament. The captain Rohit Sharma has said that he along with Kohli will keep opening but scores of 1, 4 and 0 by the master batter does not exactly give it the best build up for the business end.
The game in Miami was supposed to be a good opportunity for Kohli to get his rhythm back, but it has been postponed for now. He would need to go into nets in Barbados from June 17 and sort out those little hitches that had been affecting him in his batting until now.
Ravindra Jadeja also falls into this bracket; he is a big-match player who hasn’t shown any form as yet during this World Cup. Each game sees Jadeja start as usual alongside the fact that Rohit knows he can pull off some wins on his own. But, like all others, he too requires some self-belief and touch after being devoid of both at IPL’s end and the first legs of CWC.
Although, Paras Mhambrey, India’s bowling coach refused to pay much attention to that. “And it is a team sport and you cannot possibly expect all of them to come off,” he noted. On the other hand, for someone as experienced as Jadeja- perhaps all he needs is a game around him so that he can just get in tune with it. And we do know that because of his ability; and having played in many matches before, then there are high chances of winning,” explained Mhambrey.
It is now up to the weather gods to change their minds and let the travelling fans and players play some cricket before moving on to West Indies.
