Four reasons why India have five left-handed batsmen in top seven

Two coaches Bharat Arun and Sridharan Sriram explain the left tilt

- VENKATA KRISHNA B

WHY ARE INDIA packing their T20 batting line-up with lefthanded batsmen? Since the tour of Ireland in mid-August, India's top seven consists of at least five left-handers. The Indian Express understands that after the last edition of the IPL, the selection committee dwelled extensively on the winning formula adopted by recent winners and also on successful T20 teams worldwide.

Two coaches Bharat Arun and Sridharan Sriram, who have mentored bowling units of India and Australia, point out the reasons for this leftward tilt. Some key personnel including the likes of Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer and Hardik Pandya have been missing in the ranks, but there is more to why the likes of Sanju Samson, Rahul Tripathi, Rahul Patidar have been overlooked for Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Ishan Kishan, Rinku Singh.

Arun, who also has experience of coaching IPL franchises Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders, highlights the current situation where the right-arm pacers generally tend to try to angle the ball across the left-handed batsmen, but aren't usually that effective even with change of pace.

Slanting across doesn't always work "If you are a left-handed batsman facing a right-arm pacer, you have a better reach.And more over, you are slanting across, which opens up various angles to explore as a batsman. If you look at training sessions, most of them practice to right-handers. So you are not familiar with the angle at all. Most pacers prefer bowling only over the wicket," Arun tells The Indian Express.

It played out in India's second T20 game against Australia on November 26th. Sean Abbott tried the slower off cutters that broke away from the left-handed Yashasvi Jaiswal. The first two balls ricocheted off the point boundary advertising hoardings as Jaiswal skilfully waited for the ball to do its thing, held his shape, and cut them through point.