Pandya: India's tactical leverage, insurance cover

India have taken one major tactical turn from their 2023 ODI World Cup campaign.

- Rasesh Mandani

They are playing with one pacer less and an extra spinner. It often goes unnoticed that one weapon that allows them this flexibility is the all-round brilliance of Hardik Pandya.

The allrounder's new-ball spell in Sunday's Champions Trophy game against Pakistan was an example of how he plugs the crucial holes in India's ODI gameplan. Mohammed Shami, coming off a successful five-for had got off to a wretched startseven wides in his ll-ball first over. If that wasn't enough, he walked off the park to treat his ankle, after bowling the third over. The heat may have got to him, but there would have been concerns, what if Shami, having come back from a long injury layoff, can't bowl again? India though had in Hardik an insurance cover. He came on in the seventh over itself. An enforced change, but he found rhythm straightaway.

Babar Azam wasn't off to a racy start in the Powerplay. One felt he had gauged the pitch behaviour and was unperturbed by the strike rate criticism around him.