How India Excelled in World Cup | The Undefeated
India’s dominance at this World Cup over Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand can be attributed to their batting and bowling statistics, which are broken down into three parts.
India finished the World Cup’s league stage undefeated after Rohit Sharma took Teja Nidamanuru of the Netherlands on Sunday. Throughout the competition, the Men in Blue did not face any difficulties, with the exception of New Zealand in Dharamsala and Australia in Chennai.
The distance between India and the other participating teams in the event is clearly bridged. India’s batting and bowling innings’ first Powerplay (1–10 overs), second Powerplay (11–40 overs), and final Powerplay (41–50 overs) will be used to compare them to the other teams who have advanced to the semifinals. To determine how far India has advanced past these teams in the competition, we have considered the average of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand as a single team (SAN) for this comparison.
Batting
| Stage of the game | India(Average runs scored in a game) | Wickets lost overall during the phase | SAN (Average runs scored in a game) | All of the phase’s lost wickets |
| 1-10 Overs | 67 | 9 | 57.33 | 12 |
| 11-40 Overs | 165 | 23 | 171 | 32 |
| 41-50 Overs | 62.14 | 12 | 80.28 | 20 |
India has been off to a strong start in the Powerplay because to Rohit Sharma’s strategy, as the table illustrates. However, SAN’s data indicates that the average number of runs scored has decreased to 57.33. But out of the three, Australia has performed the best in the Powerplay. Like India, Travis Head, David Warner, and Mitchell Marsh have been trying to get games started faster. In the first powerplay, Australia scored 581 runs, 26 less than India.
South Africa, though, is mostly to blame for the statistical disparity. Their top order has taken a different strategy to this competition, batting attritional cricket for the opening few overs before allowing their power hitters to do the job. They have scored 447 runs this phase, the fewest of the top four, while New Zealand has scored 521 runs.
The way the middle overs went is what’s interesting to see. The SAN category has made a sincere effort to target middle-overs bowling, but doing so has also resulted in the loss of further wickets. India, meanwhile, has reverted to the outdated strategy of waiting for a bad ball and rotating their strikes.
The Indian hitters’ protection of the team’s lengthy tail, which hinders them from maintaining the momentum garnered during the Powerplay, could be one explanation for this. There are bowlers in Australia and New Zealand who can bat as well.
Temba Bavuma’s team, on the other hand, appears to have decided to keep wickets in hand during the Powerplay and raise the scoring rate naturally during the innings in order to address their comparable issue of their batting stopping at number seven.
According to death overs batting statistics, South Africa has contributed significantly to SAN, particularly in their matches against England, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, when their potent middle order went on the rampage. During the last ten overs, the Proteas scored 722 runs. The Kiwis scored the fewest runs (453), trailing only the Australians (513).
India, on the other hand, has averaged a low score in the phase since they have batted in the final powerplay seven times in nine games, two of which they were chasing—the match ended in 41.3 overs against Australia and Bangladesh.
Bowling
| Stage of the game | India (wickets selected for every stage) | Economy | SAN (wickets selected for every stage) | Economy |
| 1-10 Overs | 19 | 4.3 | 15 | 5.6 |
| 11-40 Overs | 41 | 4.5 | 41 | 5.4 |
| 41-50 Overs | 22 | 5.8 | 19 | 7.6 |
The table is self-explanatory. In every aspect of the game, India has shown excellent ball handling skills. If batting is putting the opponent out of the game in the first ten overs, bowlers are also seizing control of the opposing batting order at the same time frame. The Indian bowling unit has seen a significant improvement since Jasprit Bumrah’s return. Even though Bumrah hasn’t taken as many wickets as Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami, the opposition appears to have waved a white flag before he even throws a ball. They appear content to have broken his spell.
But that’s where this Indian side distinguishes themselves from the others. Additionally outstanding have been those like Shami and Siraj. With Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja’s spin web, the opposition is not receiving much relief in the middle overs after they get beyond their initial deliveries.
However, South Africa has outperformed Australia and New Zealand in the SAN category, taking 21 wickets in the first powerplay as opposed to 11 and 13, respectively. It goes beyond what India has also selected. The majority of the wicket total may be attributed to Marco Jansen’s opening burst. However, the circumstances surrounding those wickets favored the pacers.
Jansen suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Indian openers in the afternoon when he played in Kolkata with little support available. In the second innings, when there wasn’t much support, it also demonstrated the Indian seamer’s ability to control the scoring rate.
Regarding Australia, their bowling in the first ten overs has been weak due to Mitchell Starc’s lack of aggression up front. They have allowed the opponents to get off to strong starts, with the exception of the match against India in Chennai. But with Adam Zampa in the middle overs, they rallied and showed some impressive finishing strokes. Australia has taken 24 wickets at the end of the innings, compared with 15 for South Africa and 17 for New Zealand.
Conclusion
Based on our analysis of the data, it appears that India’s dominance in this competition has resulted from their flawless performances with the bat and ball in the first ten overs. When the ball is fresh and firm with two fielders outside the ring, Indian hitting appears to capitalize; when the field is split, they tend to back off.