India remodel T20 cricket to their liking to triumph in ultra-modern classic

Let’s list the records. The most runs in a T20 World Cup game, 253 plays 246 to add up to 499 of the best. The most sixes in a T20 World Cup game, the rope cleared 34 times, 19 of which flowed from India’s bats alone. And in the end, a gap of a six and a single. Jofra Archer came in needing five sixes in five and ended with three in three. It wasn’t enough.

This was an ultra-modern classic, in keeping with T20 cricket’s trends and yet out of step with T20 World Cup history, which has defied the ‘higher, further, faster’ phenomenon of modern franchise batting. Progress can only be held at bay for so long.

It’s the kind of game that should be even rarer in a global semi-final, where the pressure makes all-out attack unwise. There had been a suggestion that India’s approach might be susceptible in this kind of situation, that it was all well and good plundering hundreds in low-stakes bilateral cricket or 14-game IPL seasons, but when it all came down to one game, tension could creep in. The IPL has become such a batting paradise, the argument continued, that India’s batters had become over-optimised for conditions in their favour. Would hitting 250 still be feasible, and if it weren’t, could they realise quickly enough and readjust to aiming for the second-gear 170, without the old heads of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to steer them through? In the end they made 250, and needed every six. This was a triumph not just against England, but against the conditions. No one believed Suryakumar Yadav when he said at the toss he would have batted first. The dew and the benign pitch and the small boundaries meant every run had to be wrung out. This is a maximal batting unit, and only maximisation would be enough.

For India, T20 World Cup champions, Champions Trophy champions, this tournament was supposed to be a coronation. Instead, it has been a struggle. In their last three bat-first innings before the T20 World Cup, India had put up 231-5, 238-7 and 271-5. Then in the tournament’s first game, against USA, they slipped to 114-7, and required a Suryakumar Yadav rearguard to pass 160. Defeat to South Africa in their first Super Eights game heaped pressure on a virtual quarter-final against West Indies, and while they came through it, it was a chase laced with tension.

And so loomed England. The two sides have contested semi-finals at each of the last three T20 World Cups, and through them you can trace the two teams’ fortunes, and the format’s evolution. In 2022, it was England who were heading towards the future with India stuck in the past. Jos Buttler and Alex Hales knocked off a target of 169 without loss in 16 overs. But if it was that side’s high watermark, it was also a last hurrah. While the 2024 T20 World Cup didn’t quite plumb the depths of the 2023 debacle, it still marked the final death of a team whose lack of clarity led to a fatal misreading of the Guyana surface.

In 2024, England were outspun. Here it looked as if they would be outmuscled. Instead, India needed every inch, every roar from the crowd, every margin. They fielded better than England, Harry Brook dropping a Sanju Samson sitter before falling to Jasprit Bumrah’s first ball courtesy of a sprinting, diving Axar Patel, who also reeled in Will Jacks to cut short England’s first attempted comeback. Samson made the most of his life and his hot streak and his unexpected selection, and India just kept coming, shrugging off the loss of Abhishek Sharma with a succession of middle-order cameos. Everyone between Nos.3 and 7 made between 11 and 43 and scored at between 170 and 300. Hardik Pandya gambled and checked at the right times. Bumrah went at two runs per over fewer than the next best in the game. Eight runs saved across four overs in a game India won by seven.

There was enough from England today, and in the tournament as a whole, to indicate that this team is at the start of something. They may need a new opener soon, and it’s unclear who it will be. There are more candidates to succeed Liam Dawson as Adil Rashid’s partner. What happens after Rashid doesn’t bear thinking about. The seam bowling looks light, with Jofra Archer’s form a concern. That sounds like a lot, but the batting of Bethell, Brooks and Jacks can form the core of a world-class middle order. A semi-final finish and avoiding a pummelling by India counts as an above-par campaign, but many minds have already been made up on McCullum.

But today was about India, who have earned the chance to exorcise the demons of their last home World Cup final, and who have remodelled an entire format to their liking.

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