When you have an inexperienced bowling attack and batting is much stronger in limited overs cricket(50 or 20 overs) than the best way to gain experience(unless the weather/surface is skewed) is to bowl second and defend a target.
Once the target is defined(irrespective of high or low scores) a bowler will experience how to constrain/focus himself to bowl – will find out what works for him to economise the run-rate and apply pressure.
One might argue that it might not work, and bowling first will give them more freedom to bowl the way the team wants!.
True there is freedom when you are bowling first, but perhaps with a little more experience it will flourish. Unlike batting, one hardly notice bowlers leaking runs, a run here, a run there, a edge to boundary on the first ball and few singles in the over goes unnoticed.
This is not the case when you are bowling second….because the asking rate drops down and it is noticeable and under pressure we hardly see bowlers bowling sanely, as they feel more pressure than batters.
INDIA – NZ series.
As the series travels to Mohali for 3rd game, the overall run-rate is 4.90/over which is contrasting to the run-rate one is witnessing these days. Below table is how these two teams bowled –
| India | Bowling Eco rate | NZ |
| 4.52 | Runs/over | 5.08 |
| 2.10 | % Maidens | 4.70 |
| 29.30 | % Consecutive 4 or less runs/over | 24.80 |
| 53.30 | % Less than 4 runs/over | 50.80 |
| 29.30 | % 6+ Runs/over | 41.30 |
| 5.20 | % 10 + runs /over | 13.10 |
If one has to impose a change than in my opinion it would be to rest Umesh Yadav and replace him with Dhawal Kulkarni. Here I feel if you are batting is strong and not performing to its potential, than it is wiser to give them another chance. Here I am not suggesting Yadav has bowled badly, but being a fast bowler there is too much work load and schedule is packed with Test cricket – and he has been playing regular cricket. In terms of his Eco rate – he is par with team….but tends to leak too many runs at the end of his over. In 2 games Yadav conceded 73 runs in 17 overs @ 4.29 runs/over – which is good – (apart from Mishra everyone has conceding less than 5)but he ends his over poorly leaking too many runs …all his boundaries come after the 4th ball of an over. Overall 51 runs are conceded in the last part of his over…suggesting he is not finish his over well and losing momentum – a key to limited over cricket.
