The role of its spinners was very important in the success of Team India.Image Credit source: PTI
Even before entering its last league match against Netherlands in Bengaluru, Team India had shown that it is the strongest team of the World Cup 2023. Team India had already reached the semi-finals by winning 8 consecutive matches. It also registered an easy win against Netherlands by 160 runs. In this match as well as in the entire tournament, Team India’s batting and bowling have been completely dominant. While captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami have received the most applause, which is right, but there is also one aspect which has made Team India so successful and made it stronger than other teams.
The Indian team has shown that it not only won, but also defeated different opponents in 9 consecutive matches. The batsmen destroyed the bowlers of other teams with their explosive batting, while the fast bowlers were continuously destroying the top order of other teams in the powerplay or the first 15 overs. Although the fast bowling of some other teams was also good, but where Team India gained the lead was in its spin department and the statistics testify to this.
Spinner became the biggest difference
Team India entered every match of this World Cup with the pair of Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav. Only in the first match against Australia, Ravichandran Ashwin was also included along with these two. Ashwin had done wonders in that one match too, but Jadeja and Kuldeep not only controlled the opposing batsmen in every match, but also took wickets and continuously pushed the teams on the backfoot. Together, these two bowled better than the spinners of all other teams and this can be understood from these figures.
If we take all the matches of the group stage together, the economy rate of Team India’s spinners was the best. The Jadeja-Kuldeep pair spent runs with a stingy economy of just 4.06, which is better than the other 9 teams. Together, both have taken 30 wickets in 148.4 overs (73.3 overs Jadeja, 75.1 overs Kuldeep). Jadeja has 16 wickets and Kuldeep has 14 wickets.
Such is the condition of other teams
Now if we compare this with other teams, it is understandable why spinners have played the biggest role. Apart from Team India, the economy of spinners of only Afghanistan (4.81) and South Africa (4.92) was below 5. Obviously both the teams also got a lot of success. Apart from these, spinners from Australia (5.16) and New Zealand (5.40) remained in the top-5. It is not surprising that 4 out of these 5 teams are in the semi-finals. The poor performance of its spinners was responsible for Pakistan’s failure and its economy of 6.20 proves this, which was the worst among all the 10 teams.
