Where did it all go wrong for India?

The city of Troy was supposedly impregnable until that bright spark Odysseus dreamt up the Wooden Horse. After ten long years of trying this ingenious invention helped rout the Trojans and finally claim the city for the Greeks. Prior to the World T20, we like many observers believed that India were the favourites to lift the crown. Led by the inspirational MS Dhoni, many of the Indian players were bang in form from the IPL and despite being without Virender Sehwag appeared to have enough firepower with bat and ball to make a serious impression.

This belief was reinforced when they trounced South Africa in the preliminary round thanks to Suresh Raina's magnificent century, and we even tipped them to win the admittedly difficult Group F in the Super Eight stage. But after heavy defeats to Australia and West Indies, the question now is where did it all go wrong?

Odysseus' cunning mind wasn't required to identify India's achilles heel, with the Wooden Horse that has breached India's barricades for the umpteenth time being a heady mixture of express pace and bouncy wickets. Without the genius of Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Sehwag, their batsmen have again failed to cope with top-class fast bowlers on lively surfaces. It was the same in South Africa in the Champions Trophy. And it was the same in the World T20 in England last year. The new generation of Indian batsmen may be talented, but they have continually failed to deliver consistently when they are the main attraction and not the sideshow to the four aforementioned geniuses.

When Gautam Gambhir was reeling off all those centuries in successive matches on the subcontinent, we were warned that he may not find it so easy when playing against better bowlers on faster tracks. This certainly appeared to be the case when Gambhir faced Dale Steyn earlier this year when South Africa toured India and is now undeniable following his obvious discomfort against the short ball on the bouncy Bridgetown wicket.

We've written before that we believe Yuvraj Singh is over-rated, but would freely admit that he has done well for India in the T20 and ODI formats. But his poor form in the IPL has spilt over here and it would appear that he needs to put as much effort into his cricket as he does in piling on the pounds.

Of the others, Murali Vijay has disappointed and been a poor substitute for Sehwag, Raina despite his heroics against South Africa (on the more docile St Lucia track) obviously struggles against the short ball, Rohit Sharma is a bit hit and miss and Yusuf Pathan never seems to do for India what he does for Rajasthan in the IPL. It won't be long before India is without the services of Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman permanently, so it is time that some of the new breed stood up and proved that they are worthy successors. Perhaps the most talented of the lot is Virat Kohli, but he was bizarrely left out of India's squad. Robin Uthappa too would have been a better bet as kamikaze batter than Pathan.

It was not just the batting that let India down. The fielding against Australia and West Indies was dreadful with Ravindra Jadeja the main culprit. Indeed Jadeja seems to be in competition with Saeed Ajmal as to who is the worst fielder in the tournament - dropping Chris Gayle proved the difference between winning and losing yesterday.

We also can't understand the Indian selection policy concerning its spin attack. As the IPL showed and as Harbhajan Singh has demonstrated ably in the World T20, quality spin bowlers are a crucial weapon in this version of the game. But firstly, India left Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha at home in favour of the inferior Piyush Chawla, and then preferred the part-timers Pathan and Jadeja to Chawla once they arrived in the Caribbean.

India still has a mathematical chance of qualifying for the semi-finals, but whatever happens they need to learn to cope with pace and bounce fast. Otherwise, they will continue to struggle on lively pitches without the genius of Sachin, VVS, Rahul and Viru.

Comments

[ceejaypee]

Bang on, as usual. I also though Ramesh Powar looked a good cricketer, very canny spin, decent hands and can get runs too, don't know what the story is there. I think many observers felt that the experience of Indian players in playing lots of IPL would somehow give them vital experience in a world situation.

I started out questioning the World T20 bearing in mind its only 10 months since the last one and following on so closely after the IPL. Turns out what it has done is shown up some of the cricket in the IPL and its participants to be substandard, and that even in the shotest form of the game, there is still a discernible step up to the highest level.

[The Reverse Sweep]

You are right ceejaypee, there does seem to be a big step up from the IPL to the international form of T20. I think India also miss its best batsmen, are suffering from bad selections and maybe even are tired from the IPL?

[greyblazer]

Ojha is surely better than Chawla. The problem is they had only 3 main bowlers for yesterday's match and the wicket at Barbados assisted quicker bowlers and even spinners but part-time spinners would get smashed on that wicket as it doesn't keep low for them to come into play.I have seen better spinners than Jadeja at the club level and I'm not joking.

I always believed that it is harder to adjust to bouncier conditions for batsmen who play on the slower wickets of subcontinent than it is for players who play on bouncy wickets to adjust to the slower conditions. So it may take time for some of the young Indian batsmen to get adjusted to the bouncier tracks.

[The Reverse Sweep]

You could be right greyblazer. The new breed of Indian batsmen are very talented but they face a big challenge to prove worthy of succeeding Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Sehwag. Jadeja looks a terrible player - I guess he is normally better than what we have seen so far in the Caribbean?

[Mahek]

The adjustment is equally difficult either way. Just ask the number of teams that struggled in India and Sri Lanka every time they played tests. But it's not important here as the adjustment had to come from the batsmen who were playing the IPL. It's not just the Indian batsmen, I've seen others struggle against the short ball as well, not that it makes our batsmen's ineptitude any less of a problem.

I don't know why people were touting us as one of the favourites. We haven't even picked the guys who were in form during the IPL so why the high hopes? It would have been difficult to make the semis even if we had our best squad in the Caribbean.

[The Reverse Sweep]

This is true. Witness England's struggles on the sub-continent, which doesn't bode well for the WC next year.

I guess a lot of people were tipping India because of the IPL and this was heightened by the excellent display against South Africa. Bad selection didn't help - where were Ojha or Mishra, Kohli, Uthappa and maybe even Tiwary?

[Mahek]

Making predictions based on the IPL can be quite dangerous. For starters, every IPL team has atleast a couple of sub-par batsmen and bowlers. Some have even more. I think Dhoni recently alluded to it when he said in the IPL you can target the lesser players. There are no such get out of jail players at the international level. Well, apart from Michael Clarke. Add to it the vast difference in the pitches in India and the ones in the Caribbean and how little Indian cricketers have played outside the subcontinent of late it's not difficult to see why we shouldn't have been favourites in this World Cup.

This is a pretty weak analogy but the English media and experts have similar expectations of the England football team because of how competitive English clubs are, yet time and again the team falls short in the Euro and FIFA World Cup. The amount of rumour mongering, sycophancy, intrusion of players' privacy is similar to that related to the Indian cricket team. It's just not the right atmosphere for players to play freely, not that I think they should use it as an excuse.

[The Reverse Sweep]

You and Dhoni are right. The IPL is not of the same standard as international t20 - there are weaker bowlers and batters in each team, which give the opposition a chance to regain or ram home the initiative depending on the match situation. What I meant was that some of the Indian players (Dhoni, Vijay, Raina and Sharma in particular) were in form from the IPL, so could be expected top carry it over - much like KP has. I think your analogy with the English football team is right. All the papers in the UK will be expecting them to win and they will get to the quarter finals and no further.