Ten reasons why Team India crashed out
of ICC -Twenty20 World Cup 2009...
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The sudden and dramatic exit of Team India from the race for the
semi-finals of the ICC World Twenty- 20 Cup 2009 has shocked
onlookers and confounded experts. Being the joint favourites along with
South Africa for winning the Cup, the defending champions displayed a
lack of innovation as also the absence of sheer desperation that resulted
in their amazing success in South Africa in 2007 when they lifted the
trophy as rank outsiders. The ten main reasons that led to their shocking
elimination are -
1) Complacency - There seemed to be an air of 'nothing-can- go-wrong'
in the team's approach. They appeared to feel all along that the Cup was
rightfully theirs and that no other team had the fire power to gun them
down. That they lost to both the West Indies and England, two of the less
formidable teams in the draw, indicated a sense of false superiority which
did not result in runs on the board or wickets in the bag.
2) Sehwag's unavailability - Despite a star-studded line-up, India had no
other batsman who could scare the wits out of the opposition bowlers
quite like Virender Sehwag does. Yuvraj Singh is India's batting hero in
this version of the game, but the task proved too much even for him, in
the absence of the Sultan of Multan, whose shoulder injury cost India
dear..
3) Wrong team selection - India bungled by playing an extra bowler in a
batsman oriented format of the game. As a result, there was not enough
ammunition in the late middle order to test the opposition seriously
enough. Dinesh Karthik should have played instead of Ravinder Jadeja in
the match against England. Yusuf Pathan and Rohit Sharma could have
bowled spin along with Yuvraj Singh to fill the breach. Ishant Sharma
could have been dropped in favour of Praveen Kumar whose swing
bowling was suited to English conditions. RP Singh should have played all
the matches, given that he was the highest wicket taker in the IPL, and
the in-form bowler in the team!
4) Fielding lapses - In the match against the West Indies especially and
also on some other occasions, misfielding hurt India badly. Two clear
boundaries went through the legs of the fielders against the Windies, and
could have made the difference in a close match. More over, India's field
placing was such that the slower fielders in the team found the ball
coming towards them on more occasions than did the best fielders.
Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan were
5) Easy early matches - A factor that Team India could not do anything
about, given their top-seeded billing! They had Bangladesh and Ireland
for company in their group and found them to be easy meat. But the lack
of serious opposition at that stage meant that they had to suddenly up
the ante against better teams in the super-league, which they could not
manage!
6) Jadeja's dilemma - By pushing green-horn Ravinder Jadeja up the
order the team management exposed him to some accurate and hostile
bowling from the England pacers in the crucial tie at Lords. Jadeja is a
talented player and had claimed two key wickets with his left-arm spin
earlier in the match but he appeared to be overawed by the occasion and
could not really handle the pressure. In a match that India lost by just 3
runs, Jadeja's 22 off 30 balls was surely a match-losing effort.
7) Short-pitched challenge - The manner in which the West Indian fast
bowlers, followed by their English counterparts, tested India's top order
with short-pitched bowling was revelatory. Rohit Sharma, Gautam
Gambhir and Suresh Raina just could not get going and were tied down
and then forced to find ungainly ways of hitting out or getting out while
facing the bouncy stuff. India's top order has seldom looked as ruffled as
it did in this tournament. Perhaps a realization that the conditions in
England are such that they require pure cricketing shots in the first few
overs may have done the trick
Dhoni was out of sorts - Captain cool, MS Dhoni kept wickets reasonably well, and marshalled his forces to the best of his ability, but
his batting was a let down. Even in the match against England when he
and Pathan almost chased down the target, he could not really get the big
shots going. His bat seemed to have lost its potency, for his shots simply
lacked the explosiveness that they are known for.
9) Media trouble - Another factor was surely the off-the-field distraction
especially the manner in which the Sehwag issue was dealt with.. The
media flayed the present Captain's attitude for the first time ever and the
foolhardy attempt at displaying a sense of camaraderie by presenting the
whole team at a Press conference was most bizarre.
10) Too much cricket - The current Indian team plays all around the year
and big matches obviously lose their aura for the players when so much
cricket is played. This was the World Cup after all, but from the look of
them, Team India could well have been playing any other international
series. Gautam Gambhir, who has been the most prolific scorer in world
cricket in the past one year, looked totally jaded, and exemplified the
mal-effects of excessive international cricket. Fans of the Indian team are
distraught and shocked at their early exit from the ICC World Twenty 20.
Let's see if the team can re-group from here and win back our admiration
in the coming months.
