India vs South Africa T20 World Cup 2022: Why Bowling Ashwin against Miller was a wrong move?

India lost its first game of the T20 World cup 2022 on Sunday as South Africa beat them in a low-scoring thriller. The second-inning clash between David Miller and Ravichandran Ashwin became an intriguing talking point from the match in Perth at the Optus stadium. Miller, who has been having a great year in his career, had the final laugh and pushed his team to victory from a difficult position. Chasing 134 for victory the Proteas lost their top 3 inside the powerplay.

Then David Miller and Markram came together and stitched together a very important partnership. That was also aided by India’s poor fielding as they dropped catches and missed run-outs. All four Indian pacers were bowling well and India’s lone front-line spinner Ashwin had his task cut out on a deck which did not assist spinners at all. Markram was dropped off his bowling by Kohli in his 2nd over but he never really troubled Miller during his spell.

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David Miller vs Off Spinners:

The left-hander scored 27 runs off Ashwin’s 13 deliveries, which proved decisive for South Africa. Miller first tonked Ashwin for a massive six in the 14th over of the match, which produced 17 runs for the chasing side and gave them a lot of impetus. Rohit Sharma’s call to keep Ashwin out and then put him back in in the 18th over did not go as well. Miller went straight after him, hitting two wonderful sixes in that over to reduce the equation to just 12 runs off 12 balls, and South Africa went on to complete the run-chase without much damage.

It would have been better had Ashwin been kept for the final over and Shami and Bhuvneshwar bowled the 18th and the 19th over. That would have given India an opportunity to dismiss Miller which would have meant that an inexperienced Stubbs and Parnell would have to face Ashwin in the final over with SA still needing more than 6 runs. Shami gave away only 6 runs in the 19th over and it was obviously difficult to face the seamers but Rohit went for the wrong matchup.

Prior to the match, Ashwin had bowled 11 deliveries to Miller in T20 Internationals without dismissing him. The Proteas hitter had hit 23 runs off his bowling at a whopping strike rate of 209.1. The majority of those runs came during South Africa’s recent tour of India just prior to the WC. In fact, Miller’s record against off-spinners this year looks like this:

So, the team’s decision to bring in Ashwin when Miller was batting was not exactly the right move. India could have thought of playing Harshal Patel instead of Ashwin in the XI.