Injury: In the first two matches, the pace battery of Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Mohit Sharma displayed exceptional spells of fast bowling. Particularly, the troika was very impressive against the Proteas, where they entirely subdued their robust batting line up. But the leader of India’s pace attack, Shami was ruled out of the match against UAE with a minor knee injury. We are well aware of the fact that Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who had been the first choice new ball bowler for Team India in the last couple of years, has been facing fitness issues of late. Though he replaced Shami in their third match, the 25-year-old didn’t look 100 percent fit.
If India lose any one of their seamers due to injury, it would become a huge headache for skipper Dhoni as Stuart Binny doesn’t have the pace to trouble a quality batting line up. It means India can’t really afford any injury to their bowlers, especially seamers. In such a scenario, a quick recovery of Shami has become imperial for the team.
Middle order: Not long ago, Indian lower-middle order was known to be among the best in world. With a match-winner like MS Dhoni coming at number six, pinch-hitter Ravindra Jadeja next and a decent batsman in Ravichandran Ashwin at eight, India have a quality middle-order capable of accelerating the run flow in the death overs with match-winning cameos. But if we go by their recent forms, they are struggling to give Men in Blue the much-needed impetus. In the first two matches of the World Cup, it seemed that India would post a 350-plus total after an excellent show by the top-order. But these three failed to live up to their reputation as India only managed to put up a total of 300 and 307 runs respectively.