India is a country where cricket is just more than a game. Every gully has their cricket hero and almost every kid aspire to be a national team cricketer. Their dreams got more wings when Indian Premier League (IPL) arrived at the scene. Earlier, while cricket had limited opportunities to grab the limelight, with hardcore domestic stars failing to reach the popularity that a national team star had, the T20 league changed the scenario. Now even a rookie domestic player could earn in crores and be fast tracked in the national team.
Social media also changed the scenario. Thanks to microblogging sites, talented players, who were yet to get recognition at the state level or the national level got viral. One such video is doing the rounds is that of, even Mumbai Indians posted his video.
He has been hailed as the greatest net bowler too.
India will hope that batsmen will helm their march towards a series-levelling victory over the West Indies with another impact effort in the fourth T20 International on Saturday. India might have stayed afloat with a win in the third T20I but Windies still lead the series 2-1, a quick reminder to the fact that the visitors still have concerns surrounding the batting unit.
It was a comforting sight indeed to see Suryakumar Yadav flicking on his beast mode and Tilak Varma chipping in with crucial runs. But India's opening combination continued to falter.
India had handed T20I debut to Yashasvi Jaiswal, resting Ishan Kishan. But for the third successive match, the pair at the totem pole position failed to impress, making just six runs. Jaiswal got out to pacer Obed McCoy in the first over itself.
In the previous two matches, Kishan and Shubman Gill had managed to score just five and 16 for the first wicket to place some amount of pressure on the middle-order.
Whether India will bring back Kishan for this match remains to be seen, but the management will hope for a more potent outing from the openers in a must-win match.
With PTI inputs