For about an hour, it looked like I and everyone else watching this game had it completely wrong. I was expecting a road as is so common in the IPL - in my defense, so were the commentators, some of whom were ripping themselves in the booth over it, so maybe I’m more qualified to broadcast cricket than I give myself credit for.
What we got was much different: the USA won the toss and elected to bowl, which raised some eyebrows. Abhishek Sharma went for a duck, and India spiraled from there to 77/6 when Hardik Pandya lofted a Harmeet Singh delivery right into the chest of Saiteja Mukkamalla on the off-side boundary. India was in mortal peril as Suryakumar Yadav dug his heels in to shore up the innings.
Those first 13 overs felt like a fever dream. Shadley van Schalkwyk was on a hat trick in a World Cup and was the pick of the USA bowlers with the way he mixed length and pace to have the Indian top order all out of sorts. This is a guy who hadn’t been selected for a T20I since August of 2024, and he was putting India’s best and brightest to the sword. They walked back to the pavilion presumably as baffled by what was happening as the rest of us.
Then India broke out its secret weapon: Murphy’s Law.
A turf monster got Ali Khan. Shubham Ranjane dropped SKY on 15 with one that looked to be in his hands and then simply let go, then took an apparent knee injury coming back up from fielding a ball in the same area later. Netravalkar, in the finest form a bowler had ever been in wearing USA colors over the last 18 months, had a rocky second over, a worse third over, and, with Khan and Ranjane out of commission, had to bowl the 20th where SKY belted him into orbit for 20 runs to get India to what looked like a daunting 161. Netravalkar totaled out wicketless for 65 runs, the worst bowling figures in the USA’s T20I history, and it certainly appeared India had a game plan for him after he gave them fits in New York 18 months ago.
The bats couldn’t sustain a chorus of “Happy Birthday” against Siraj and Arshdeep, with the top order going a combined 8(18) and leaving the guys looking like they would have to scrap just to hit three figures. Milind Kumar showed fight, but then bafflingly took two steps down the track when he was staring right at keeper Ishan Kishan, who, again as confused as the rest of us, nearly dropped the ball as he stumped Milind out for 34. Krishnamurthi and Ranjane - mercifully still able to bat - put up a respectable stand, and the USA were actually on par with India’s score at one point in the middle overs, but neither of them had SKY’s ability to accelerate against Axar Patel or Hardik Pandya. Axar got Sanjay out and got Harmeet Singh immediately after. Siraj got Ranjane out LBW for 37(22) on the final ball of the game with a yorker that drilled him on the left foot, which, while largely academic by that point, felt like the most appropriate way for the game to end.
If someone had told me at 8:15am Eastern that India would win by 29 runs, I would have probably taken it, but not at the cost that it exacted from the USA camp. With Jessy Singh likely done for the tournament before it began with a nasty shoulder injury, now Ali Khan’s status is up in the air, and Ranjane’s ability to bowl is also in question: the team has 12.5 players right now, and Netravalkar and van Schalkwyk are the only two healthy pacers. If Rushil Ugarkar and Ehsan Adil are traveling reserves after missing out on camp, it might be worth calling both of them in. If there are more injuries than that, the World Cup campaign is over, so call up Ritvik Appidi or Adnit Jhamb for the hell of it.
We’re not there just yet, though.
India had the book on Netravalkar but also the talent and depth to make him pay for mistakes at any point in the innings (and he fed one of SKY’s best shots). That’s not a given in the remainder of Group A. There are options for the batting order but it’s still a good group on paper, and the spinners were really good with the ball, especially Mohsin. I thought Ugarkar was our third-best pacer coming into the tournament anyway, so any recall of the young man into the squad could actively help the USA win games. Ask Glenn Maxwell how good Ugarkar is in the death overs.
In most respects, this is where we all expected this team to be after the first game, but injuries will create problems and sap margin for error away from Pubudu Dassanayake to get the playing XI right over the next three games. The Netherlands and Namibia are teams this squad is still capable of beating, and Pakistan might be too after they limped home against the Dutch in Colombo amid a bizarre collapse that came out of left field and put them at the mercy of Max O’Dowd’s love/hate relationship with physics.
This team can still achieve its goals. It’s going to be much tougher than they planned, but everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face. With two days to prepare for Pakistan, they have time to figure out how to punch back.