Big picture: Final T20I crucial and irrelevant at the same time
It’s a proud record, and it must mean a lot to India’s players and coaching staff, but what does it actually mean in an attention economy devoted to the ICC event cycle? In one vocal and hard-to-please corner of social media, Sunday’s series-sealing six-wicket win against Afghanistan was notable chiefly for India’s refusal to bat first after winning the toss. They hadn’t challenged themselves enough, and to not challenge yourself with a T20 World Cup imminent is, well, unpardonable.
That T20 World Cup is now even more imminent. The series finale in Bengaluru is India’s last T20I before that tournament. That tournament, however, is still nearly five months – and an entire IPL season – away.
Bengaluru, then, occupies a strange and hard-to-categorise space. It is both a crucial game in the lead-up to a global tournament and a dead-rubber match far removed from any event of real significance. If it is to mean anything at all,…