The hollow feeling of losing a big World Cup match at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad is not new for Suryakumar Yadav. He endured it on one of the most harrowing nights in Indian cricket nearly two and a half years ago. He was at the centre of another such deflating experience on Sunday, leading the team this time. The stakes weren't as high as a World Cup final, but they had consequences that still cut deep.

At the end of it, he said: "Sometimes you've got to think, if you're chasing 180-185, you can't win the game in the Powerplay, but you might lose the game in the Powerplay."

An inference like that was unthinkable until three weeks ago, when India strutted into the World Cup as the most feared batting unit, playing with a sense of arrogance and setting benchmarks. The defining motif of this team's success in this World Cup cycle (between 2024 and 2026) began with unyielding Powerplay intentions. They've scored at close to 10 runs an over in that phase - only England among the Super Eights teams have bettered that tally.

Strike-rates across phases in this World Cup cycle (Teams in India's Super Eights Group)

But this tinge of conservatism in Suryakumar's ideas is not sudden. It's been the World Cup's narrative: India's batters have been tripped up early by sticky surfaces across venues. Before the Namibia fixture in Delhi, assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate reckoned India needed to consider a batting plan B after what went down against USA in Mumbai. There, India were down to 46/4 in the Powerplay and needed timely rescuing from their captain.

The win papered over the cracks, and against Namibia they slipped back into their usual groove with 86/1 in six overs. Yet, Ishan Kishan, who smashed 61 off 24, pointed out that the pitch was sticky early on. Hardik Pandya, the other half-centurion from the game, went a step further, claiming that both pitches India had played on until then weren't conducive to batting and that they'd prefer flatter surfaces in the tournament.

That preference does a disservice to the batting talent at India's disposal at the top and the depth until #8. But go back to the strike-rates table and you will understand why. True surfaces in all four home series during this World Cup cycle allowed them to fly at the start, force bowling teams into course-corrections and as a result, keep their foot on the throat in the other two phases. When conditions have denied them the first act of this three-act play, they've been made to look distinctly one-dimensional.

Against USA in the group stage and South Africa in the Super Eights, they've had their wings clipped early. Their quality rose above the surface against the Associate side, but the 2024 finalists buried them after knocking them back in the first six overs (31/3).

"I've sort of banged the drum about it. I think the biggest challenge for us is finding a way to play on wickets that are not typical to what we're playing on," ten Doeschate said in Ahmedabad.

This is another reiteration that India need to rewire some of their habits to account for pitches where the ball will hold up before reaching them, and swinging through the line will not always clear the infield. It's perhaps easier in theory to suggest a shift than to implement it for players who've built their batting approach over the last two years in a certain style in very different and docile conditions at home. They've had the confidence to go hell for leather in the first six overs, and the backing when it didn't come off. In this period, those with the gumption to be exceptional good-wicket batters have been given the keys to the top-order and made the flag-bearers of the very identity of this team.

The question for India is whether recalibration is truly possible at this juncture for batters wired to hit it big from the first ball. But there is little time for such ideological debates. Now that the conditions have thrown a curveball at them and left them on thin ice with a terrible Net Run Rate (-3.800), their title defence rests on how the batters improvise over the next one week against Zimbabwe and West Indies.