India’s team unity could be the key to World Cup semi-final victory over Australia

Previosuly reliant on world-class batsmen, India have transformed into a team that puts the group above personal glory, writes Dileep Permanchandran.

India possess a world-class batting line-up, but it has been their bowling unit, including Umesh Yadav, that have excelled at the World Cup. Mal Fairclough / AFP

Vern Law, the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who won the Cy Young award in 1960, once said: “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”

India will want that to be the case when they take on Australia in a World Cup semi-final at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

On paper, the home side are better equipped to deal with the conditions, despite the Chinese whispers about the spin-friendly surface.

Australia also have not lost a game to India all summer, a sequence that has taken in four Tests, two ODIs and a warm-up match before the World Cup.

They have two men in their ranks — Michael Clarke, the captain, and Shane Watson — who were part of the team that went unbeaten through the 2007 World Cup. India have three individuals who played in the 2011 final — MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina. R Ashwin did not play that match, but was part of the XI that beat Australia in the quarter-final.

On the surface, there would not seem to be much of an experience gap, but, dig a little deeper and you can see why India are quietly confident going into a match where they would have been classified no-hopers even a month ago.

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This is a team that knows how to win. More importantly, it is a side that invariably saves its best for the big occasions.

Their World Cup winning streak, dating from March 2011, stands at 11 matches. In between that tournament and this, they won five straight on their way to Champions Trophy glory. Eight of the XI that will take to the field against Australia were part of that triumph.

Ajinkya Rahane has replaced Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar has ceded his place to Mohit Sharma, and Ishant Sharma was sidelined by injury, but the core group behind that success has been at the heart of this World Cup campaign as well.

It is not as though the intervening years have not been without travails.

Shikhar Dhawan’s form before the tournament was the subject of much discussion. Rohit Sharma has, in his detractors’ eyes, always been a flat-track bully. Suresh Raina cannot play the short ball. MS Dhoni’s finishing skills are on the wane. Ashwin cannot take wickets abroad.

This tournament has largely been about making a mockery of some of those assertions. It has also turned on its head the notion that India rely on their batsmen to win games.

The batting unit has excelled, but none of the Indian batsmen are in the running to top the run charts. Dhawan is seventh, 174 runs behind Kumar Sangakkara, Kohli is 16th, Rohit 20th.

Of the 15 bowlers with 12 or more wickets, three are Indian. Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav both have better figures than Wahab Riaz, whose spell in Adelaide won him so many plaudits. Ashwin has been immaculate, but for an off day against Zimbabwe.

But like their unflappable captain, this team knows better than to care about individual landmarks. Kohli has 22 ODI centuries, yet the two most important innings that he has played in the format did not even fetch him 50.

In the 2011 final, he came out at the fall of Tendulkar’s wicket, to near silence, and made 35 in an 83-run partnership with Gautam Gambhir.

Two years later, his 43 gave India something to bowl at in the Champions Trophy final.

The high-pressure games are not always won on the back of big hundreds or five-wicket bursts.

A little nous goes a long way. This Indian team has plenty of that.

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