MUMBAI: Higher the hope, greater the heartbreak. No team aimed so high in the ongoing Twenty20 World Cup as did India. The defending champions were rated as the favorites to keep the title. The squad, led by Dhoni, itself believed so. Thus, when the fall came, it came from a great height and it hurt the passionate followers of the game even more.
All kinds of analysis are now being proffered by all and sundry, experts and non-experts. To pacify the angry fans at home the skipper says “We are sorry,” with all the earlier cockiness all but gone. The coach, Gary Kirsten, had to be more clinical and offer the staleness from the hectic IPL as an excuse for Indian team’s poor performance.
Other teams, like Australia and England, too met an early waterloo, but there was no national mourning as we have in India at the moment. There was never any doubt that India were one of the stronger teams and hopes of the fans were riding high on their players, but, perhaps, the vagaries and pitfalls of the 20-over version of the game was not fully appreciated.
The fall-outs of the failure are numerous. The worst is the sad occurrence of a complete transformation of Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a captain and as a player. The flamboyance in his batting, that had made him an instant hit, has completely vanished. He has become more or less of a plodder. He further blundered by promoting himself on occasions to the No. 3 position.
In the end, it was his captaincy that came so severely under the scanner. He altered the strong batting order thoughtlessly. One could see that he was treating the shortest version of the game as a 50-50 over game, with attempts to stabilize the middle of the innings after the fall of a couple of early wickets. It is freely said that the 20-20 over format has no middle. It is one hell of a run hunt all the way.
Dhoni’s handling of the bowling saw him make some terrible miscalculations on the utility of his better bowlers. Expensive bowlers were persisted with and the truly effective ones were needlessly kept back.
With so much already on his mind, captain Dhoni ought not to have indulged in a needless confrontation with the media, which he treated with uncalled for disdain. His differences with his deputy Virendra Sehwag was bound to have an adverse effect on the rest of the players in the team.
I am sure that after this debacle and his own peculiar behavior, Dhoni would have realized that however great your popularity and lucrative your endorsement contracts, no one can be bigger than the game. There is the shining example of a man called Sachin Tendulkar looming large before him.
