Defending champion India crashed out of the second edition of T20 world cup being held in England with two successive defeats in Super 8 stage.
They started the tournament with injury to their key opening batsman Sehwag and eventually he was pulled out of this world cup. The format of the game is such that even the best of the teams will not make the cut. Still one can pinpoint some reasons for this debacle. There were some genuine shortcomings with this Indian team. Let me highlight three obvious moments which totally undid the Indian team:
Moment 1: Dhoni scoring 11 runs off 24 balls in the game against West Indies
Moment 2: Ravindra Jadeja scoring 25 off 35 balls in the must win game against England.
Moment 3: Ishant Sharma’s lack of variety in his bowling and his overs going expensive.
Moment 1 is due to the fact that Dhoni has changed his game entirely over these two years. He is no Dravid to play like this. For the fact, Dravid had better strike rate in later half of his one-day cricket. Dhoni has to be himself and not to loose his originality.
Moment 2 is due to poor selection on the part of the selectors. Either Dinesh Karthik (S/R: 127.04) or Abhishek Nayar (S/R: 137.58) should have been selected. They have better credentials than Jadeja. I have always found Jadeja (114.37) struggling to force the pace except once against Kings XI Punjab in the IPL.
Ishant Sharma is a fine pace bowler. But he seems like lacking variety. He often found wanting in shorter and shortest version of the game. Praveen Kumar, Irfan and RP Singh had better credentials in the shortest version of the game. Moreover they had good IPL compared to Ishant. Ishant is still young and hopefully he becomes more versatile in coming years.
The consistent thing in the Super 8 stage is the poor fielding effort of Indians. The team which struggles in the field often does not perform well. Indians also got their batting order wrong. Suresh Raina should have been batting at no.3 from the group stage itself. It would have helped him in the Super 8 stage where he straightaway pushed at no.3 without any decent hit in the group stage. Then promoting Jadeja ahead of Yuvi in the crucial game against England is a most blemish step. They also did not get good starts from their openers in the Super 8 games.
They started the tournament with injury to their key opening batsman Sehwag and eventually he was pulled out of this world cup. The format of the game is such that even the best of the teams will not make the cut. Still one can pinpoint some reasons for this debacle. There were some genuine shortcomings with this Indian team. Let me highlight three obvious moments which totally undid the Indian team:
Moment 1: Dhoni scoring 11 runs off 24 balls in the game against West Indies
Moment 2: Ravindra Jadeja scoring 25 off 35 balls in the must win game against England.
Moment 3: Ishant Sharma’s lack of variety in his bowling and his overs going expensive.
Moment 1 is due to the fact that Dhoni has changed his game entirely over these two years. He is no Dravid to play like this. For the fact, Dravid had better strike rate in later half of his one-day cricket. Dhoni has to be himself and not to loose his originality.
Moment 2 is due to poor selection on the part of the selectors. Either Dinesh Karthik (S/R: 127.04) or Abhishek Nayar (S/R: 137.58) should have been selected. They have better credentials than Jadeja. I have always found Jadeja (114.37) struggling to force the pace except once against Kings XI Punjab in the IPL.
Ishant Sharma is a fine pace bowler. But he seems like lacking variety. He often found wanting in shorter and shortest version of the game. Praveen Kumar, Irfan and RP Singh had better credentials in the shortest version of the game. Moreover they had good IPL compared to Ishant. Ishant is still young and hopefully he becomes more versatile in coming years.
The consistent thing in the Super 8 stage is the poor fielding effort of Indians. The team which struggles in the field often does not perform well. Indians also got their batting order wrong. Suresh Raina should have been batting at no.3 from the group stage itself. It would have helped him in the Super 8 stage where he straightaway pushed at no.3 without any decent hit in the group stage. Then promoting Jadeja ahead of Yuvi in the crucial game against England is a most blemish step. They also did not get good starts from their openers in the Super 8 games.
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