Bhuvnehwar Kumar (centre) celebrates a wicket with Virat Kohli (left) and Rohit Sharma against the Netherlands. (Twitter/BCCI)

How to bat and bowl at the tennis-ball pacy bounce at Perth? Who is India’s matchwinner with the ball and bat?

As crazily tight as the game against Pakistan was, India’s first serious test of batting technique would come on Perth pitch against South Africans on October 30. It required a touch of genius from Virat Kohli to make the Pakistani pacers bleed (even Hardik Pandya was unable to get going against pacy bounce), but the pitch at MCG is still no match to the bounce we have seen at Perth. South Africa is also loaded with good pacers to exploit the steep tennis ball bounce. Indians did land up in Australia early and chose Perth as their training camp; we shall know soon if that comes in handy now against pace.

It’s been the theme of the tournament so far: Hard lengths from the pacers. Consider this stat: Out of the 389.3 overs bowled in the Super 12 thus far, there have been 157.1 overs of dot balls. 943 balls of either tuk-tuk or beaten or left alone. Sachin Tendulkar had warned against disregarding singles and being thwarted in the ambition of big hits. [Read Full Article]