India knocked out in the super 8 stages of T20 world cup. Well, none surprised. Because this format of the game doesn’t allow any team the luxury of being hailed as clear favorites, or for that matter – underdogs. The reason for such scenario is the fact that no team has come up with clear-cut strategies on how to approach the game, like the mighty (may not be any more) Australians often do for tests and one dayers. Teams are to be blamed because, despite the fact that T20 is going to be future of cricket, they haven’t taken this format seriously. Younis Khan openly admitted that T20 is a time pass game and created a flutter. In a game where two wickets or two sixes in an over determines the result, and very little chance of revival when the game starts slipping away, captains, more often than not, just go through the motions and hope things happen.
As far as India’s premature exit is concerned, the batsmen were the culprits- Except for an occasion when Bhajji gave 10 in wides (2 balls out side the legside, beating keeper to boundary) and India lost by 3 runs. Their shot selection did them in. Most of them were in the IPL mode, at lofted the balls at will only to be caught at the deep. Significantly, in IPL a ball hit for 70-75 meters, sailed to the galleries, whereas, the same distance hit ended up safely into the hands of fielders. The sixes hit in long on, long off were measured to be 90 meters.
Next reason is their soft approach. When fielding they don’t pressurize the batsmen by accurate throws, and while batting - by quick running. Instead of converting singles to twos, they converted twos to singles, and sometimes got run out in the process. Such approach pushed them deeper in to the hole from where they never managed to get out. Better luck next time.
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Indian team for the T20 2009 World cup was woefully short of the Champion standards. The batsmen's inability to play short pitched stuff did them in. None of our batsmen were able to play balls that were targetted at their ribs on fast bouncy pitches. No good openers + no good middle order batsmen, barring Yuvraj, - so, how do we expect such a horrible team to win the cup?? Dhoni is a good strategist, but, he is in the team not because he is a strategist but because he is a big hitter. If he has forgot the method of scoring boundries, then, its better that be told to concentrate on Tests and ODIs.
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