The Indian team finished as the runners-up in the Commonwealth Games last month. They lost to ever-dominating Australia in the final. They would be cursing themselves for losing another title which was within their reach. But what's gone is gone. 

One of the highlights of that tournament for India was the form of their senior players. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues all performed exceedingly well with the bat. While Renuka was the stand-out bowler for the team. She showed that she has the potential to carry the seam attack of the team going ahead. It was a pity that her devastating spell in the opening game against Australia didn't come in a winning cause but regardless that spell was enough to showcase that she has the ability to dominate the biggies of world cricket. 

Throughout Birmingham 2022 India struggled to find another pacer who could assist Renuka. Meghna Singh was expensive. In 5 games she gave away runs at an economy of 8 and picked only 3 wickets. This is in stark contrast to what Renuka achieved. She picked up 11 wickets in 5 games at an economy of just 5.47. 

The Indian team is lucky to have two World class off-spinners in the form of Sneh Rana and Deepti Sharma who can bowl in any phase of the game. Their performance in the semi-final against England was one of the major reasons that India played the gold medal match. 

But the team that won the silver medal still had a lot of holes to fill. The pace bowling concern is addressed above already. The other major concern was the lack of fire-power in the middle order. 

The team tried to address the problems for the England T20I series 

When the team for the just concluded England series was announced, one of those concerns were addressed as the likes of Hemalatha and Kiran Navgire were included in the squad. While the management persisted with Meghna Singh as the second pacer in the squad even as they ignored experienced Shikha Pandey for another series. 

The Indian team had an opportunity to test their players in the series. An injury to Jemimah Rodrigues meant that one of Hemalatha or S Meghana were definitely going to get all the three games. Kiran too was expected to make her debut.

The management started the series on what seemed like a good combination as they tried to play on their strengths. They went in with just one specialist pacer in Renuka and three spinners; Deepti, Rana and Radha Yadav. While all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar was the 2nd pacer. This meant that India had a fairly long batting line-up and also had 6 bowling options if we count Harmanpreet Kaur as well. As the series progressed they over complicated the things for themselves, as was evident in the decider yesterday.

India's approach in the series 

In the first game which England won easily, India got a decent start from their openers while batting first, they lost their momentum in the middle but again got things back on track thanks to a little cameo by Richa Ghosh who by-the-way returned to the squad after being mysteriously dropped from the CWG squad. But the Indian batters failed to finish their innings as they would have liked. Deepti struggled, so did Kiran. But it was expected. Deepti spent her time in the Hundred sitting on the bench for Birmingham Phoenix while Kiran was making her debut. 

The Indian bowling lacked any penetration even as Sophia Dunkley and Danny Wyatt killed the chase in the powerplay itself.

In the second game, Radha Yadav's brilliance in the field restricted England to a par-total and India chased down the target easily courtesy of Mandhana's scintillating innings which was well supported by Harmanpreet Kaur. 

In the third and the final T20I which was played yesterday one would have imagined that India would go in with the same XI but instead they dropped Navgire and brought Meghana in the side. 

Making things overly complicated for themselves 

This meant that Hemalatha was dropped to number 5 and Meghana had to come in at 3. Hemalatha didn't have a great outing in the first two games as she struggled to find her rhythm after returning to the side after a long hiatus. So to drop her to number 5 did not make sense. This was when Kiran got to play only 1 innings in 2 games. Meghana hasn't gotten a long rope in the XI despite performing well in the New Zealand series right before the world cup earlier this year. The same seems to be the case with the other players. 

Coming back to the game, India got off to the worst possible start as they lost their openers very early. Meghana playing her first game after facing Pakistan in CWG struggled to put bat to ball as she was dismissed for a 9 ball duck courtesy of a brilliant catch by Wyatt on the deep mid-wicket boundary. That put pressure on Hemalatha too as she too was dismissed for a duck. When India lost 4 wickets, Deepti Sharma was sent to arrest the collapse and held one end up. But after Harmanpreet got out, surprisingly Sneh Rana was sent ahead of both Richa and Pooja. When Sneh got out there were still 7 overs to go.

One could really wonder what was the need to keep the specialist batters seated in the dressing room when the only way India could have come out of that situation was to put a decent total on the board. India eventually managed 122 runs, 47 off those came in the last 5 overs where Richa and Vastrakar faced most balls. So if they could have faced more balls there could have been a possibility that India might have posted a total around 140. But that wasn't to be the case as India decided to keep their big hitters for the later half of the game. 

The less we talk about the bowling the better because the team lacked ideas, they aren't the best fielding side out there as well. One might wonder what India really gained out of these 3 T20Is. 

India has to build a team for the T20 WC next year in South Africa and if they want to win the tournament they need to stick with a clear plan and a clear mind set. Otherwise they would once again fall short, like they did in CWG, 2020 T20 WC final and the 2018 T20 WC semifinal. Some tough calls need to be taken.