India need to have better plans on surfaces that assist spin. That was the assessment of assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate after India's 17-run win over Netherlands in Ahmedabad on Wednesday night, their fourth straight win heading into the Super Eight of the T20 World Cup.
"I think on better wickets, you won't see it [batters struggling against spin]," ten Doeschate said. "You can hit through the line with more confidence. But the point is that we need to have plans where the wickets do hold and the [longer] boundaries are there. We need to be able to have a game plan to deal with that threat."
The make-up of India's batting line-up - six left-hand batters in the top eight - has made it conducive for oppositions to target them with offspin. Through the group stage of this tournament, no team has faced as much offspin as India (102 balls). Of the 13 teams to have faced at least six overs of this style of bowling, only Nepal (5.25) and Oman (5.42) have poorer scoring rates than India's 6.23 an over.
"I wouldn't say [there are struggles against] offspin, I'd say fingerspin [on the whole]," ten Doeschate said of India's worry heading into the Super Eight. "If you take the combined figures, I think Pakistan bowled 14 [17] overs of fingerspin in the last game, and off the top of my head, I want to say [they got] something like 4 for 78 or something like that [5 for 125]. So it's not great numbers [for India]."
On Wednesday, Netherlands unleashed Aryan Dutt, and he began by dismissing Abhishek Sharma for a third straight duck in the competition, in the first over. Dutt eventually bowled three overs in the powerplay, for figures of 2 for 17, with Ishan Kishan being his second wicket.
That brought Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma together, and the pair consolidated instead of taking the aggressive route, with India scoring at 7.44 runs per over through the middle overs (7-15).
On match eve, batting coach Sitanshu Kotak had brushed aside any concerns around Tilak's batting approach, stating he was merely playing the role assigned to him. Ten Doeschate, however, was clear India had to plan batter through the middle phase.
"It's been a trend in this World Cup," ten Doeschate said about the middle phase, where India haven't been able to break free. "In IPL or bilateral series, the pace of the innings carries through from powerplay. Across all games, particularly across Sri Lanka [at this World Cup], you get off the books quickly, and batting becomes difficult through the middle phase, and teams are getting a lot more clever now.
"The Dutch guys took pace off a lot of the time. Teams are bowling a lot of fingerspin to us because we have so many left-handers, so it's a challenge, and [it's] going to be a differentiator in the second phase of this competition.
"Colombo [against Pakistan] was a particularly difficult wicket, and I think the numbers tonight got sort of improved towards the back end. But again, Aryan Dutt bowling four overs, it is a big challenge. I think these two venues in particular with the bigger boundary here [in Ahmedabad], and obviously a slower wicket in Colombo sort of does exaggerate that. But it's something we're going to have to focus on, like I said, with the amount of fingerspin we're going to get in the next three games."
Has India's approach against spin made it easier for the opposition to plan against them?
"It has," ten Doeschate said. "We don't have many options [in the top three]. We've got Sanju [Samson] sitting on the side, and we feel on balance, particularly with the games coming up, if we look at what fingerspinners we are going to come up against, New Zealand have got a few guys who bowl fingerspin, so do West Indies, and so does South Africa if you include Markram… But on balance, we still feel that these are our best batters, and we're going to make do with the abundance of left-handers."
On the subject of left-hand batters, ten Doeschate wasn't fretting over Abhishek's three ducks.
"He looked a little bit down," ten Doeschate said. "He wants to do well, he understands the magnitude of the competition. He's well aware of how good a player he is, he understands a small run of form like this can happen, but he's batting well.
"Yesterday [on match eve] was the love he needed. He batted for close to 90 minutes, really looked like he had his rhythm back. So he'll be fine. Just got to keep filling him with confidence. His record is the confidence he needs."