Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Durban: India need to iron out some rough edges and get their act together in their back-to-back Super Eight matches at Kingsmead to nurture any hopes of entering the semi-finals of the ICC World Twenty20 championship.

After their thrilling victory against Pakistan here, the Indians fell back on their erratic ways and lost to New Zealand at the Wanderers. That loss made it imperative for the team to win their remaining matches — against England on Wednesday and hosts South Africa on Thursday — to avoid an early exit from the tournament.

With plenty of grey areas in both batting and bowling, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni needs to find a quick solution ahead of their first clash against England.

“We really need to do well in every department. The batsmen have done well in one game while the bowlers have done well in another. Now we need to do both the things together, that will help the team,” said Dhoni.

Before India play England on Wednesday, New Zealand will be taking on England on Tuesday and the result of that game will have a lot of bearing on deciding the top two teams for the semi-finals from the bottom half of the draw.

As things stand now, New Zealand have the best net run rate (+0.95) followed by South Africa (+0.5). India (-0.5) is marginally ahead of England (-0.9). Yet all that can change very quickly as the teams regroup in Durban for their last two games.

Since India will be playing at the bouncy Kingsmead, their gameplan will obviously be devised keeping in mind the conditions that are usually favourable to the pace bowlers. “You don’t groom players in World Cup. I will play the best team that I have, if someone fits into that team, he will play, otherwise he won’t,” Dhoni said.

However, on the evidence of their performance in recent weeks, there is a huge question mark over Ajit Agarkar. Indians can fancy playing Yousuf Pathan, who can be handy with the ball and with the bat, or even Rohit Sharma who has strangely been condemned to the reserves for the last three months.

India will also have to think hard and figure out whether Dinesh Karthik at No. 6 or 7 is the ideal batsmen at that position and whether he can really win a match on his own in the death overs.

Finally, while India’s fielding has been marginally better than what they did in England, but overall the standard leaves a lot to be desired. Unless Indians polish their out cricket and cut down on their unforced errors, they will have to make it up with the bat.

“It was a close game, not outplayed. We shouldn’t be thinking too much about the things that went wrong, though we must learn from them,” said Dhoni.

Meanwhile, Indian team arrived here from Johannesburg this afternoon. The team took the day off even as group rivals England and New Zealand had an absorbing practice session. (Agencies)