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Article by icyman -
Team India again tells s a sorry tale during yet another edition of the T20 World Cup. We saw a similar draft being scripted during the 2009 T20 World Cup and the tale repeats in 2010 as well. Pundits attribute this consecutive second round exit to the short rising delivery and the inability of the Indians to adjust themselves to it. Probing further into this debacle would reveal another set of factors responsible for the same.
25th April 2010 saw the Chennai Super Kings defeat the Mumbai Indians in the finals of the IPL 2010. This cricket festival lasted for around a month and a half wherein teams travelled to and fro various destinations in India and played games within less than 24 hours. As 30th April 2010 arrived, the cricket carnival moved to the Caribbean for the 3rd edition of the T20 World Cup. Naturally a 24 hour flight journey would have immensely tired the Indian players not to mention the fatigue they must have experienced during the IPL. As expected, a tired Indian team would not have taken field for a warm up game, which many deemed as an unnecessary evil after the heroes had played in 59 IPL matches. The lack of warm up games meant that the team had to acclimatize to the conditions in the first match of the World Cup.
Lets us move on to the team composition. The team already missed a devastating opener in Virender Sehwag and one would say that it definitely robbed the team of some initial momentum. Despite his absence the batting lineup has been hailed as strong with the likes of Gambhir, Dhoni, Yuvraj and Raina. The form of Murali Vijay is a bit worrisome as he came into the side on the back of a very promising IPL stint. He is quite vulnerable to the short and fast deliveries. Apart from his composed 47 against minnows Afghanistan, he hasn?t really shown the form he displayed during the IPL. The other opener Gambhir too, hasn?t been on the best of touch. Teams seem to have found his weakness against short pitched bowling and upon closer observation one finds that Gambhir has been attacked more than any other batsman in the team.
The middle order looks strong on paper with the likes of Dhoni, Raina and Rohit. However, their performances haven?t really bailed India out of trouble. Against South Africa, Raina scored a ton whereas the Aussies were at the receiving end of Rohit Sharma?s brutal assault. Dhoni, on the other hand tried his best against the hosts. What the team has lacked so far is the cumulative performance of the middle order. The odds of miracles happening are one in a million.
The bowling too has looked out of sorts on many occasions. Mere containment is not enough and someone needs to tell Harbhajan Singh about that. Though he has bowled beautifully, he has clearly expressed his inability to pick up wickets. Dhoni also tends to use him up during the first ten overs which allows the opposition batters to take the game away from India in the later stages. Zaheer Khan has looked out of sorts again. His IPL performances were way better than his current ones. His bowling seems to lack the sting it had during the IPL. Ashish Nehra has been the silver lightning on the dark cloud and is a glimmer of hope for India. Nehra has not only contained the opposition but has managed to pick up crucial wickets. With injuries to Praveen Kumar, the skipper has opted for an extra spinner. However, the spinners so selected are merely part timers and not genuine specialists which are a must in this form of the game.
Next comes the issue of All-Rounders in the team. They have failed miserably. Doubts lingered over Yuvraj Singh even during the IPL. Looking back at his career one finds that apart from the 6 sixes cameo against England at Durban, he hasn?t really done anything great for the team. Yusuf Pathan too is in the same boat. Experts have been commenting upon the number of legitimate deliveries he has faced in his T20 career and have labeled it as ?not enough?. The mark of a T20 All-Rounder is to ensure that he makes the most out of the limited opportunities given to him. Talking of opportunities, a player who has had enough of them is Ravinder Jadeja. His selection in the squad has been baffling enough, seeing as he wasn?t allowed to play in the IPL. A short of match practice Jadeja was being employed by Dhoni in almost all games. Now if the Indian skipper goes in for an extra All-Rounder, one would expect the person to walk in front of Harbhajan Singh in the batting line-up. One would think that Jadeja?s batting would make up for his shoddy bowling, however, with the team management not having enough faith in his abilities, his selection sure is baffling enough.
South Africa 2007- the pitches were fast and bouncy. West Indies is known for its slow pitches. However, India has traditionally struggled at Barbados. Though we won in South Africa, one wonders whether the Caribbean Islands are jinxed for the Indian team. A first round exit in the 2007 World Cup was waved off as the team being highly over confident. Looking back, the team of 2007 was stronger than the current one, but still they crashed out. So, are the Caribbean Islands jinxed for the Men in Blue?
More...
Team India again tells s a sorry tale during yet another edition of the T20 World Cup. We saw a similar draft being scripted during the 2009 T20 World Cup and the tale repeats in 2010 as well. Pundits attribute this consecutive second round exit to the short rising delivery and the inability of the Indians to adjust themselves to it. Probing further into this debacle would reveal another set of factors responsible for the same.
25th April 2010 saw the Chennai Super Kings defeat the Mumbai Indians in the finals of the IPL 2010. This cricket festival lasted for around a month and a half wherein teams travelled to and fro various destinations in India and played games within less than 24 hours. As 30th April 2010 arrived, the cricket carnival moved to the Caribbean for the 3rd edition of the T20 World Cup. Naturally a 24 hour flight journey would have immensely tired the Indian players not to mention the fatigue they must have experienced during the IPL. As expected, a tired Indian team would not have taken field for a warm up game, which many deemed as an unnecessary evil after the heroes had played in 59 IPL matches. The lack of warm up games meant that the team had to acclimatize to the conditions in the first match of the World Cup.
Lets us move on to the team composition. The team already missed a devastating opener in Virender Sehwag and one would say that it definitely robbed the team of some initial momentum. Despite his absence the batting lineup has been hailed as strong with the likes of Gambhir, Dhoni, Yuvraj and Raina. The form of Murali Vijay is a bit worrisome as he came into the side on the back of a very promising IPL stint. He is quite vulnerable to the short and fast deliveries. Apart from his composed 47 against minnows Afghanistan, he hasn?t really shown the form he displayed during the IPL. The other opener Gambhir too, hasn?t been on the best of touch. Teams seem to have found his weakness against short pitched bowling and upon closer observation one finds that Gambhir has been attacked more than any other batsman in the team.
The middle order looks strong on paper with the likes of Dhoni, Raina and Rohit. However, their performances haven?t really bailed India out of trouble. Against South Africa, Raina scored a ton whereas the Aussies were at the receiving end of Rohit Sharma?s brutal assault. Dhoni, on the other hand tried his best against the hosts. What the team has lacked so far is the cumulative performance of the middle order. The odds of miracles happening are one in a million.
The bowling too has looked out of sorts on many occasions. Mere containment is not enough and someone needs to tell Harbhajan Singh about that. Though he has bowled beautifully, he has clearly expressed his inability to pick up wickets. Dhoni also tends to use him up during the first ten overs which allows the opposition batters to take the game away from India in the later stages. Zaheer Khan has looked out of sorts again. His IPL performances were way better than his current ones. His bowling seems to lack the sting it had during the IPL. Ashish Nehra has been the silver lightning on the dark cloud and is a glimmer of hope for India. Nehra has not only contained the opposition but has managed to pick up crucial wickets. With injuries to Praveen Kumar, the skipper has opted for an extra spinner. However, the spinners so selected are merely part timers and not genuine specialists which are a must in this form of the game.
Next comes the issue of All-Rounders in the team. They have failed miserably. Doubts lingered over Yuvraj Singh even during the IPL. Looking back at his career one finds that apart from the 6 sixes cameo against England at Durban, he hasn?t really done anything great for the team. Yusuf Pathan too is in the same boat. Experts have been commenting upon the number of legitimate deliveries he has faced in his T20 career and have labeled it as ?not enough?. The mark of a T20 All-Rounder is to ensure that he makes the most out of the limited opportunities given to him. Talking of opportunities, a player who has had enough of them is Ravinder Jadeja. His selection in the squad has been baffling enough, seeing as he wasn?t allowed to play in the IPL. A short of match practice Jadeja was being employed by Dhoni in almost all games. Now if the Indian skipper goes in for an extra All-Rounder, one would expect the person to walk in front of Harbhajan Singh in the batting line-up. One would think that Jadeja?s batting would make up for his shoddy bowling, however, with the team management not having enough faith in his abilities, his selection sure is baffling enough.
South Africa 2007- the pitches were fast and bouncy. West Indies is known for its slow pitches. However, India has traditionally struggled at Barbados. Though we won in South Africa, one wonders whether the Caribbean Islands are jinxed for the Indian team. A first round exit in the 2007 World Cup was waved off as the team being highly over confident. Looking back, the team of 2007 was stronger than the current one, but still they crashed out. So, are the Caribbean Islands jinxed for the Men in Blue?
More...
