Resistance in the middle: India's depth answers an early World Cup test

"You can't say India was in trouble because I was yet to bat."

After cracking up half a room full of scribes with her very first words on India's comeback, Amanjot Kaur joked, half-seriously, that she was genuinely worried they'd make her famous - or worse, infamous - for her one-liners.

There was playfulness in Amanjot's voice when she said that, but the intent behind it was unmistakably fierce. And it was exactly the kind of attitude India needed, staring down the barrel at 124 for 6 in their 2025 World Cup opener against Sri Lanka on home soil.

A settled and in-form top-five was India's biggest strength heading into the tournament. But, sport has a way of challenging even the most carefully laid-out plans. From a steady, if not solid, start, India were undone by the ageless Inoka Ranaweera who claimed India's '3, 4 and 5' in a single over. To make matters worse, Richa Ghosh went chasing a short and wide delivery and cut it straight to cover point in the next.

Deepti Sharma, still new to a slightly sticky crease herself, was joined by Amanjot, their task cut out, to drag India out from the hole. The duo formed an unlikely yet formidable pairing. One, a seasoned allrounder whose contributions have been often belittled, and the other a World Cup debutant whose inclusion in the XI wasn't convincingly guaranteed given her minimal participation since a workload management break.

Deepti was everything India needed her to be, a composed yet calculated senior in the middle who could soak up the dot-ball pressure early and assess quickly when acceleration was on the cards. Like in the very next over after new-batter Amanjot had played five dots on the trot against Ranaweera, Deepti was quick to redirect pressure. Chamari Athapaththu strayed down the leg side at the start and the end of her over, and Deepti was quick to kneel down and sweep both freebies to the ropes.

It's a shot Deepti has relied on the most to tackle spin, not just tonight where she made 19 off the 10 attempted sweeps, but overall since 2024. As many as 43.11 per cent of her runs against spin since 2024 have come via sweeps, 40 percent of them via the conventional sweep. It may not always look aesthetic when the sweeping begins early or is as frequent, but it got the job done.

If Deepti was the brain, Amanjot was the brawn. Despite Ranaweera's formidable figures until then, the latter was quick to spot when the veteran erred in her lines and confidently swept and slog-swept the left-arm spinner to the leg-side fence. Amanjot got a lifeline off Kavisha Dilhari when on 19, and made the Sri Lankans pay for the mistake. The next Dilhari over yielded 13, including a maximum.

With the counter-attacking partnership going at better than run-a-ball, Athapaththu went back to pace, to her trusted aide in Udeshika Prabodhani, but had little luck against the brave. Amanjot got a second reprieve on her way to a maiden ODI half-century in 45 balls, picking up boundaries in the successive overs off the senior pacer to force Sri Lanka's hand again.

She departed after a third drop, and having outscored her senior partner to a fifty, but had dented Sri Lanka's spirits enough to set it up for a Sneh Rana special at the backend. Deepti, meanwhile, raised a run-a-ball fifty, but her calming presence at the other end allowed Rana to wield the long handle. The last-two overs yielded 34 alone, pushing India's total from competitive to daunting.

The fightback caught Sri Lankans off-guard. It induced mistakes from the side that had just spun itself to a massive advantage, and in exploiting this momentary slip-up India's seventh-wicket pair made a statement: that the lower-order is just as capable of winning games.

"It was a turning point," Deepti said after collecting her Player of the Match award in Guwahati. "We had lost back-to-back wickets. We wanted to have a long partnership and take the game deep till the 46-47th over. The things that we had planned, we executed. There was pressure at all because I am used to these types of innings and situations having done this in the past. [At the time] that partnership with Amanjot was important."

Deepti also led the bowling charge with a 3 for 54 to script a comfortable win eventually, but saying so overlooks the bigger picture. India's vaunted batting depth was tested thoroughly, unexpectedly and too soon into a competition they're considered one of the title favourites for by the Sri Lankan captain herself. It wasn't an ideal first game, but then maybe it was.

A collapse of 4 for 4 right at the start of the tournament as high-stakes as this can be unsettling. But the 103-run stand of Deepti and Amanjot was, in disguise, just the kind of challenge India needed to test the mettle of the lower-order that had often been rendered surplus to demands in the lead-up to this World Cup campaign.

Ironically enough, this recent trend stands in contrast to its historical reputation as the team's banana peel in crunch situations. India were knocked out by England in consecutive years: at Lord's in 2017 and then again in Antigua in 2018. At the 2023 World Cup, Australia capitalized on this vulnerability in the semifinal. Whether it was this rescue act in Guwahati, or another attempted one a fortnight ago also led by Deepti at the backend, the lower order resilience is a welcome sign for India's batting depth isn't in theory anymore, it's now battle-tested.

India was indeed in trouble. But trouble, as Amanjot said, is relative - especially when you're still yet to bat. "An injured lion takes a step back, only to take a bigger leap forward," she said to bring out a loud laughter again. Except, that wasn't a mere one-liner, it was an insight into a mindset.