Suryakumar Yadav underlines India's much-needed attacking approach for T20 World Cup

Wednesday evening in Thiruvananthapuram was all about the bowlers. Pacers, in particular, for this was one of those rare T20 games where the ball did more than it ordinarily does in the shortest format. So much so, after his struggles in recent games, Bhuvneshwar Kumar would have loved to bowl on that wicket. Yet he had to contend with resting and watching the game on television.

In his absence, Deepak Chahar showed us how he isn’t any less fearsome in the art of new-ball bowling. Whether the Indian selectors (and team management) have bet on the wrong horse for a second T20 World Cup running is a debate for another day. Then, there was Arshdeep Singh. Returning from the lows of the Asia Cup, he put in a stellar performance that should land him straight into India’s starting XI for the World Cup opener on 23 October.

Chahar and Singh had the ball on a string. At 9/5 (for clarity, that’s five down for nine runs), it didn’t matter that India were missing Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Kumar. In T20 cricket, that is a knockout blow you don’t recover from.

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And the 107-run target was never going to be enough. It did give South Africa something to bowl at. Anrich Nortje and Kagiso Rabada make for a potent threat, and it showed as India crawled to its lowest powerplay score in T20I history.

Such was the rarity of these conditions that you don’t ever anticipate seeing 17/1 after six powerplay overs. KL Rahul was on 11 not out off 26 balls at that time. Usually he gets a lot of stick for slow, progressive batting at the top. On the night, his approach was right on the money. If you expected India to knock off those 107 runs as if they were chasing net run-rate, it was never going to happen. The conditions, especially with the new ball, were too bowler friendly to allow such a chase.

What Rahul did was par for course on that wicket especially considering how Rabada-Nortje were getting the ball to dance around. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli struggled for good reason, and it makes Rahul’s long stay at the wicket even more impressive. Even so, this was the proverbial day to proclaim that there has been a tectonic shift in India’s T20I batting prowess. This trio no longer hold India’s fortunes in hand – that responsibility has passed on to Suryakumar Yadav.

Hit it like SKY!