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Monday, June 15, 2009

India tumbles out of the T20 World Cup

Thanks to various factors, the Indian team crashed out of the ICC T20 World Cup in England. I would say that Harbhajan Singh's 2 five-wide balls tilted the match towards England. The difference is there for all to see. Even if a single was scored on each of the balls, the English score would have been 8 less.

Various other factors contributed to the downfall.
a) The absence of Viru Sehwag. Though Rohit Sharma tried his best, it was obvious that the talent of Sehwag would definitely made a difference.
b) Off-field events. MS Dhoni is known as Captain Cool. But, he had lost his cool for couple of press conferences - signs that he was not comfortable with something.
c) Over-confidence. There was a hint of over-confidence in the team, which resulted in net sessions being attended only by part of the team.
d) Dhoni's Midas Touch seemed to work in the first innings, when the leg-slip field-placing worked and also the bowling of Ravindra Jadeja. But, in the second half, it was conspicuous by its absence.
e) The short-pitched ball again played its part in the Indian loss. Both Rohit and Raina fell trying to play the hook/pull shots.
f) The Indian bowling choices were also not so great. RP Singh bowled so well at the start but ended up bowling an over short. Ishant Sharma gave away runs in most of his overs but still completed his quota. Yuvraj Singh's over against KP failed but he was given another over to try again.

Next time, better luck to the Indian team. The attention on the World Cup will no longer be there personally - let the best team win.

2 comments:

Krish said...

The fact that Dhoni couldn't keep track of RP Singh's overs shows that he was not fully in the game.

Unknown said...

India started of as favorites but could not sustain the momentum and ended up losing everything.. There were some technical errors to be blamed but the team management needs to seriously rethink their options and strategies..