India primed to go where no team has gone before

India are in a rarefied stratum of T20I cricket, carving consistency out of its inherent chaos. Under Suryakumar Yadav, this team is pushing toward a feat no one has achieved in this format before: a successful World Cup title defence and a third title overall. India know from personal experience that a home World Cup often magnifies pressure in ways that have tripped up even the biggest champions. No team has ever won a T20 World Cup on its own soil, leaving India with yet another box to tick on an already ambitious to-do list.

But this Indian side has spent the last two years defying the basic conventions of the format. A win percentage of 80 has gone a long way in smoothing over the waves of variance T20 brings. They've reduced it to something repeatable, with a level of control that should lead them to the podium in March.

The squad, and what it tells us:

Suryakumar Yadav (c), Axar Patel (vc), Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Harshit Rana, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Rinku Singh

India approached the World Cup selection with a striking clarity of thought. They decisively binned the idea of retaining Shubman Gill in the top-order, seeing it as a disruption to what they had built before last year's Asia Cup. Sanju Samson reunited with Abhishek Sharma at the top, but endured a long struggle that stretched until the last series before the showpiece event, against New Zealand. But sound selection planning led India to a fail-safe for exactly such situations. They moved on from Jitesh Sharma as the back-up wicketkeeper and drafted in Ishan Kishan, who has shot straight to the top of the line-up, singing from the same sheet as the rest of the order.

India have also equipped themselves with a finishing axis of Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya and Rinku Singh, and a batting order beyond the openers that can be moulded by match situation. Among the bowlers, picking both Kuldeep Yadav and Varun CV remains a luxury which compromises the batting depth that India desire. The one way of having them both in a line-up was by bringing in Harshit Rana for one the quicks. But there's now uncertainty over his availability for the tournament.

India are also set to wait on Washington Sundar to regain full fitness, instead of reaching for a replacement. He represents a solid like-for-like cover for Axar Patel, should such a need arise like it did in the series against New Zealand.

Road to the World Cup

India have hit near-perfect notes since winning their second T20 World Cup in June 2024. They've won 33 of the 41 T20Is in this period, which includes a seven-match undefeated run in last year's Asia Cup. They've won eight bilateral series - four each at home and away. It's a victory run that includes oppositions like Australia, South Africa (both home and away), England and New Zealand.

Last five T20Is: W-W-W-L-W (latest)

The way they play

India's current batting flamboyance can be traced back to 2022, when Rohit Sharma pushed for an ideological reset after the World Cup semifinal loss to England. Between the 2022 and 2024 World Cups, India won 19 of their 29 T20Is, before pulling out all stops to secure the title in 2024. Since then, in this post-Rohit, post-Kohli world, India have scaled newer heights of batting bravado, giving wings of uninhibition to their top-order.

This shift has been most evident in the way they've approached PowerPlay batting, hitting at close to 10-an-over. In isolation, that is no longer novel in modern T20 cricket. What separates India from most others has been their ability to carry similar brute force through the remaining two phases. They have scored at a strike rate of more than nine in the middle-overs and pushed beyond ten at the death.

This 'new India' have scored 12 200-plus totals in this timeline, when no other team has managed more than seven. India's top-three T20I scores - 297/6, 283/1 and 271/5, have all come in this cycle where the clear priority has been to bat big, fast and without a care for setbacks. India have lost just six of the 41 matches played in this period, and only two of those have come at home when they fell short chasing scores more than 200. It speaks to the batters' efficiency that India have enjoyed far more good days than bad despite such a risk-heavy mindset.

Who can bend a match in 10 balls

Abhishek Sharma leads and embodies this Indian batting revolution. It is deeply ingrained in his psyche to blaze away from the first ball, with no real regard for bowling reputations. Abhishek strikes at 194.74 in T20Is - a statistical outlier that borders on the absurd. Of the 433 batters who have faced at least 500 deliveries in this format, no one else has a strike rate in excess of 175.

Scheduling

Expectedly, all of India's fixtures are scheduled for 7 pm IST starts, bringing the challenge of dew into play at every venue. They begin on the opening day against USA in Mumbai, before moving to the national capital to face Namibia, with a four-day gap in between.

There's then a rise in time spent travelling after the second match. India go from Delhi to Colombo for the marquee group clash against Pakistan, a near four-hour flight squeezed into a two-day turnaround. The journey lengthens further for their final league game, as they go from Colombo to Ahmedabad to face Netherlands, again with just a two-day break.

Banana-peel fixture

For a team that has dominated this World Cup cycle like no other, the opening round offers no real banana peels. If the Pakistan Government can be convinced to reverse its stance on the February 15 fixture, that Colombo game could present a subtle shift, with conditions expected to bring spin into play far more than at home.

Even so, this is a team built to absorb such a change. They have spin-hitters in their line-up to combat such challenges, and quality spinners of their own to turn this potential bug bear into an advantage. This might just be the match for India to unleash both Kuldeep and Varun. That however, could might need sacrificing a bit of their batting depth if their enabler Harshit Rana is out of the tournament.

What a good World Cup looks like

India head into the tournament as the gold standard of T20 cricket everyone else is chasing. Anything less than a final appearance will go down as underperformance.