T20I series: Surya & Co will eye chance to get even as BCCI cracks whip

After nearly a fortnight of post-mortems, leaks and speculation sweeping across Indian cricket ever since the team was humiliated in Tests both away and at home, it will be left to their T20 side to lift the gloom in the five-match series against England. Suryakumar Yadav’s men are scheduled to arrive in Kolkata on Saturday along with Jos Buttler & Co. to kickstart the series on Wednesday, 22 January.

The buoyant mood of last June, when the Men in Blue won their second T20 World Cup, seems like a distant memory though quite ironically, they have not put a foot wrong in that format since then. They won all three T20 series in between, beating Sri Lanka 3-0 and Bangladesh 3-0 after Gautam Gambhir’s arrival, while brushing aside a strong South Africa 3-1 in an away series under the supervision of V.V.S. Laxman.

However, the white-ball series against England will be the one under the new Code of Conduct, supposed to be implemented with immediate effect. A cap on family time during overseas tours, bar on players travelling separately rather than with the team, no personal staff (read managers, chefs, assistants and security) or mandatory domestic cricket are some of the salient features of a 10-point dossier sent across to members of the Indian team, though none of them have been made public by the BCCI.

The guidelines, ostensibly prepared after the BCCI review meeting last Sunday, must have had a buy-in from the trio of Gambhir, chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar and captain Rohit Sharma. There is talk of sanctions being imposed on errant players and the examples of Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan — both of whom were dropped from reckoning for national selection as well as central contracts — is fresh in the memory of the cricket fans.

The underlying theme of the charter laid down by the Indian board is hence of cracking the whip, and the best antidote that Team India has is to get back to winning mode. Nothing succeeds like success in sport as one still remembers how senior BCCI officials were basking in reflected glory on the Indian squad’s return from the West Indies. Rohit Sharma & Co. have a chance of swinging the public mood back in their favour if they can lay their hands on the ICC Champions Trophy, set to begin in Pakistan and the UAE in less than a month.

However, the T20I series comes first, and the hosts will be going through a three-day camp at the Eden Gardens to get into the groove simultaneously with Jos Buttler and team. The audacious scoops, ramp shots and reverse sweeps will replace the need for discipline and character that were found wanting among the Indians in the last two months, and SKY & Co. are well equipped in this business.

A point of contention in the Indian line-up, however, has been the elevation of Axar Patel as the new T20 vice-captain by unceremoniously dropping Hardik Pandya from the role. A decision that defies logic as Pandya, who provided the much-needed balance to the Indian team during the last World T20, had been also the vice-captain there to Rohit Sharma. The allrounder had been leading the T20 side for nearly two years since the T20 World Cup in Australia and was being primed to take over as the captain, until SKY was preferred in the role.

The unceremonious dumping of Pandya from the vice-captaincy was not followed by any explanation either. ‘’What happened with Hardik Pandya? No one is thinking or talking about him. What exactly has happened? His T20 World Cup was very good and after that, he played domestic cricket as well. He is an IPL team’s captain and India have won five of the six T20I series he was captained,’’ asked TV pundit and former cricketer Aakash Chopra on his YouTube channel.

A pertinent question, albeit with no answers!