India are playing a different sport

What India can do with their skill, power and intent is score 20% more than par on any pitch.

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For a long time, a yorker on off stump was a lockdown delivery. There was little you could do. It angled in at the stumps, cramped you, and then also landed in a very awkward spot for power.

Joel Garner and Glenn McGrath almost broke ODI cricket with these kinds of balls. But batters like Michael Bevan and then Lance Klusener found ways to score. Asian batters used lower middles on their blades, but scoops and helicopter shots came in as well.

But the yorker, when correctly bowled, on the right line, still works. We saw Bumrah’s over in the semi-final of this tournament. Old players hate that bowlers don’t deliver enough of them, ignoring all the many obvious reasons. LIke the best yorker bowlers only hit them 50% of the time, fields have changed due to modern shots, and batters move in their crease more than ever before.

When Jimmy Neesham, the surprise best bowler for the Kiwis, was coming in to Sanju Samson, the Indian had moved across his stumps. It’s one of his superpowers, the ability to face each ball from a different place on the crease, and bowlers hate it.

But in this situation, Neesham has seen this and decided to go for the surprise yorker. Generally, a ball like this would be kept out or knocked away in the tenth over. It’s a well executed delivery, and the batter hasn’t got down to scoop. So top end would be a stolen two, more likely a dot or single.

Instead, Samson decides to open the blade off the front foot to run it past short third for another boundary.

We need to zoom in for you to see the genius on this. The ball is on the bat, and yet we see almost none of the blade. He has opened it up so much, and still middled the ball. This not an edge, or a mistake. His eyes are right over the stop of the ball, he turned his bat to the side, and middled a perfectly executed yorker to an unprotected boundary for another four.

This shot is filthy, almost illegal. And it wasn’t done by one of their big hitters, but a technician. As close as their top order has to some kind of anchor.

Before this World Cup, I said India was playing a different sport to everyone else. This is what I was talking about. They were still susceptible to form, dew, pitches and collapses. But when they bat, they are doing things we have never seen before.

This was a road for a while, but by the end of the first innings, the balls were gripping. Even India’s batting order struggled before Shivam Dube’s great last over, which was helped by a headbutted boundary. But what India can do with their skill, power and intent is score 20% more than par on any pitch.

Roads? Where they’re going, they don’t need roads.

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According to Simon Doull, the boffins have ruined our sport, and no cricketer can think for themselves anymore. This was the gist of his mini-rant when Matt Henry bowled slower ball filth that no analyst in the world would have suggested. But the idea was that this was a good pitch for slower ones.

In the fifth over, with one of the best new-ball bowlers around, it didn’t make sense to bowl slower deliveries. But for India, Bumrah came on for the fourth, and bowled a load of them, essentially ending the game.

When it comes to skills, India don’t just have what other teams possess, but they’re so much better.

Mitch Santner is a really good player, and he’s getting better with that bat every year. But you’d still pick Axar Patel ahead of him.

The Kiwis have had a great run of Rachin Ravindra, and even Neesham and Glenn Phillips making up their fifth bowling allocation. It was seen as a weakness coming in, and yet they have done well. But India has Hardik Pandya. An incredible fifth bowling option.

Varun Chakaravarthy has had a terrible tournament and ended up with the most wickets. Sure, they’ve played more games. But not many players have a terrible run with this many wickets. Kuldeep Yadav would be most teams’ best spinner, and he can’t get on the park.

Indian fans have spent most of their time moaning about the batting order, which is like complaining on the Titanic that you don’t like the particular make of lifeboat available because they are uncomfortable. India’s backup top three could be Jaiswal, Gill and Sooryavanshi, which New Zealand would take over theirs (despite how good Seifert and Allen have been).