Cricket being the kind of game it is, at some point arguments have to give way to statistics. And so, with all teams barring England and Canada having one league match left to play in the 2011 World Cup, it is easy to see which among the serious title contenders has the worst bowling attack: India, of course.
But how bad is bad? Well, don’t blanch, but in five matches so far India’s bowlers have conceded more runs than any other team, barring by a whisker the Netherlands! (England and Canada too, but they have played an extra match each.) In five Group B matches, India’s bowlers have given away 367 more runs than South Africa, and 447 more runs than West Indies. As for the four qualifying teams from Group A, Pakistan has given away the highest number of runs, but even they have given away 341 fewer runs than India.
On average, it would seem that the teams that get through to the quarter-finals can hope to score 70-90 more runs against the Indian bowling attack than they can against any other qualifying team’s bowlers. What that means is obvious: if India are to win, their batsmen have to make up by scoring 70-90 more runs per match than they might have had to otherwise. Instead of 250, they have to hit a minimum of 320, perhaps more. Remember that they scored a seemingly impregnable 338 against England, and still could not win. Against South Africa, they scored 296 and lost. Even Bangladesh notched up 283 runs against India; that country’s next highest score has been a paltry 227 (against England). Against Ireland they could score only 205.
Most commentators have pointed out that India has the strongest batting line-up in the competition. But here’s the thing: the team is hugely dependent on just two willow-wielding wonders, Tendulkar and Sehwag, who are the biggest run-getters per match in the 2011 World Cup. The problem is that, between them, they also account for nearly a half of all the runs scored by Indian batsmen! Take away these openers and India’s batting line-up too is pretty ordinary. While Sehwag has so far piled up 327 runs and Tendulkar 324, none of the five other batsmen whom India have deployed has crossed the 200-run mark. As became obvious in the run chases against even the modest totals put up by Ireland and the Netherlands, once the openers fell the tension levels climbed quickly. Against South Africa, the batting simply collapsed immediately after Tendulkar went.
So, if India hopes to win the tournament, its hopes hinge on its openers. If they fire, India is in with a chance. But the point about the knock-out rules that take over from the quarter-final stage is that they have to fire in every match; one bad match in which the openers fail and the home team can go… well, home. But if that happens, the real fault will lie with the bowlers, of whom India has just three with an economy rate of less than 5 runs per over. Australia, England, South Africa have as many as six or seven such bowlers, while the other qualifying teams have between four and five; even Zimbabwe and Bangladesh have four and five bowlers with an under-5 economy rate. Indeed, among the 20 leading wicket-takers in the tournament so far, India has just two (Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel). India may never go into another World Cup with such strength in its batting. But then, has it ever gone into a World Cup with such weakness in its bowling?