INDIA’S ouster from the ICC World Twenty20 will no doubt bring the knives out and there will be endless discussions on the batting order and team compositions etc., but the fact remains that this Indian team is a very good one and as can happen in this format of the game England were temperamentally better if not entirely so on the skill front.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni will get the brunt of the attack especially after his earlier skirmish with the media but, is there anybody better to lead India than him? The answer is an emphatic no. Dhoni is a young captain and is still learning the trade and so he will get it wrong sometimes as it happened against England but then is there an individual who in his line of profession has never got anything wrong?
Let us not get emotional about the defeat but be rational about it and accept that England were charged up, had a plan and executed it very well. They dropped leg-spinner Adil Rashid from the team and included the new-ball bowler Ryan Sidebottom to bring in a bit of variety in the attack. Indians play spinners very well so Rashid’s dropping was expected.
What the two losses have shown is that some of our young batsmen have little clue how to deal with short pitched bowling and both West Indian and England’s quicker bowlers came hard at them and the so called sensations were left senseless. It was evident in South Africa too in the Indian Premier League where the ball bounces a bit more and the quicker bowlers can be a handful. That’s why the par scores there were in the region of 140.
More than shortcomings with the bat and ball it was the lackadaisical fielding that cost India the 15 to 20 runs that eventually made the difference in both the losses but especially against England. The sight of the young guns holding on to the ball as if believing that batsmen would dare not take the second run and then when the batsmen did run getting the throw off target time and again does beg the question of the fielding ethic in the team. It is the one aspect where the world including minnows like Scotland, Ireland and Netherlands have progressed but India is still lagging behind.
India play South Africa who along with Sri Lanka have been the most consistent of teams in their last match of the tournament and they will play it with nothing to lose but as always there is pride to be regained.
