Flexibility, Combinations, Scenarios - What Does It All Mean In Cricket?

Understanding the concept of Entry Point - role clarity, combinations, scenarios in T20 cricket.

Ever since Rahul Dravid has become the head coach of the Men's Indian cricket team, a few words are very common in every interview by him or Rohit Sharma - role clarity, flexibility, combinations, and scenarios. What exactly do these words mean especially in the T20 format which will hold a World Cup later this year. 

Cricket, especially limited overs, is a situational game. In every match, a batter has to bat in different situations and the role keeps on changing from when the batter arrives at the crease to when he/she leaves. 

In T20 cricket, situations are either too simple or too complicated and this is the time when a batter needs clarity in mind as to what he/she needs to do and what is expected of him/her from the management. 

Entry point

The batting order is a basic structure that a team has where the batters are lined up according to their positions. Common knowledge suggests that the top three need to play out the new ball, middle-order to play spin well and the lower order to smack the ball in the final overs. A team's batting structure is also listed like this only. 

However, things are more complicated than the above-mentioned straightforward list. There are times when the top three batters keep batting for the most part of the innings and the rest of the batters don't get many overs to bat and have to straight-up score runs at a quick rate. 

Now, some batters, especially the lower order bats, only know to score at a particular rate while the numbers 4 & 5 are the ones who take some time to hit freely since their gameplay doesn't go well with the situation. 

Although the teams knowingly & unknowingly use this tactic of entry point, the viewers don't often understand what happened when one batter comes ahead of another. 

The entry point of a batter depends upon the batter's characteristics, the opposition bowler, and the situation. 

In T20 games, matchups are very important and the teams already have the database to understand which bowler can attack which batter. For example, Virat Kohli vs spin in the middle overs is a match-up used by many teams recently. They deploy spin against Kohli, who recently has had difficulties hitting freely. 

A T20 batting side is constructed in such a way that it has a variety of combinations to tackle different situations. The most basic is a lefty-righty combination to keep the opposition team changing fields and bowlers. Another is spin hitter-pace hitter. 

Identifying which player can do what best is how to keep a team ahead of the opposition. Given spinners are operating or are likely to come in the few overs, a spin hitter from the lineup could go while the pace hitter sits back. 

Another example of a bad entry point is a recent one. During the 3rd T20I between India and West Indies, Rohit Sharma came out to bat at number four. Yes, it was because of the different other reasons but if we completely focus on the tactical point of view, then it was a bad entry point for the Indian skipper. 

Rohit, like Kohli, hasn't been able to hit spin freely during the middle overs. During the match, he came out to bat in the 9th over when spinners from both ends were operating. Rohit struggled and could only score 7 from 15 balls. 

These are the situations when a team can send in a dynamic batter or a spin hitter(Suryakumar Yadav in this case) to counter the bowler and make a scenario where the opposition has to change the tactics. 

There are n number of situations that arrive throughout the match. The captain and the coach need to make sure they have players who can tackle any scenario and situation. This is exactly what Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma have kept on saying in their recent interviews. 

"I think we need a certain level of flexibility in T20s, that again has been communicated to a lot of the players. There has been conversation around the fact that we need to be flexible, we can't be predictable. We need to sometimes have the left-right combinations," Dravid said after 3rd T20I vs West Indies. 

"All the stats and data tell you the value of left-right combination, left-arm spinner to left-hand batsman - we all know that stuff. We want our players to be flexible, and that we may need to move them around, and I think they've responded really well. They want to embrace that, understand the value of that, and so, yes, certainly through that middle order, it's an area we want to improve and get better at."

It's high time that people watching from the outside understand these little tactics and dynamics that teams constantly try to get themselves ahead of the game. Before making a decision on a player's performance, the viewers need to understand the concept of entry point, especially in a T20 game. 

Understanding these things only makes the game more interesting and exciting to watch.