A 17-run victory in T20 cricket is an awkward margin. Against the Netherlands last night that was the margin of victory for India. Against Pakistan batting first, India scored 175. In these situations, what is required is composure. It is a sign that the team is emotionally mature.
Cast your mind back to the 2019 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Federer had two championship points on serve. Centre Court was leaning in his direction. The script was written and the emotion was overwhelming. Djokovic didn’t go for a miracle winner. Nor did he attempt a low-percentage gamble. He played percentage tennis and trusted his baseline patterns to stay emotionally neutral. He insulated himself from the noise. That is what maturity looks like in elite sport. Is this a new muscle memory that the India cricket team has developed?
At the Premadasa in Colombo on Sunday, Tilak Varma and Surya Kumar Yadav played out that partnership that ensured they took the game deep for Rinku Singh and Shivam Dube to go after the bowlers at the end. We often misunderstand composure. It is not the absence of emotion. Composure is trusting preparation, staying within structure and not allowing the occasion to dictate behaviour
When the Netherlands strung together boundaries towards the end, India didn’t look rattled. When the required rate dipped into that manageable zone, there was no visible anxiety. They stuck to plans. In T20 cricket, panic often shows up as over-ambition – the search for the yorker that becomes a full toss, the slower ball that sits up, the desperate wide line chasing edges. The contrast is stark when you cast your mind to that ugly shot from Babar Azam off Axar Patel. Composure required him to demonstrate confidence and belief, settle down, rotate the strike and take the game long.
Not every match is destined for highlight reels. Championships are built on stacking a set of good and excellent performances. The Netherlands had clearly done their homework, borrowing a left handed batsman from the local cricket association and mimicking the conditions. Aryan Dutt’s 2 for 19 in his four overs, removing both the left handed openers, who could have destroyed the attack meant that this wasn’t a day of outrageous individual dominance. It was a day of professional accumulation and if you look at it from that lens it was a total team effort with scores of 30 plus from Tilak Varma, Surya Kumar Yadav, Shivam Dube and Hardik Pandya. India’s body language suggested a team comfortable with process rather than obsessed with optics.
Going into the Super 8, the team needs to know that they have a lot more arsenal than they think. Dube has matured into a clean-hitting middle-order genius . His 27 in 17 balls in the game against Pakistan and the 66 in 31 deliveries last night will definitely be on the minds of the opposition teams along with the threat of the opening duo. India’s win over the Netherlands will not dominate headlines. But inside the dressing room, it reinforces something more important: the ability to respond rather than react.
And in a T20 World Cup, where margins are microscopic and pressure multiplies in knockouts, that is a decisive asset.
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