Well I never thought that the Indian team would not even be able to make it through to the semi-finals of the second edition of the T20 Worldcup! What surprised me most were the tactics that the Indian thinktank came up with. To start it all they replaced an opening batsman(V. Sehwag) with a middle order wicket keeper batsman ( D. Karthik), then they made a very good middle order batsman(R. Sharma) open the innings even though he failed to give a good start to the team throughout the practise matches and the group stages. This though seems to have been done because there was no other alternative available to the management and probably can be accepted, but one must point out to some of the very baffling decisions that were taken by the skipper(M.S. Dhoni) in the field. For example in the game against the West Indies Irfan Pathan had bowled two very good overs giving away just 9 runs and he strangely was not handed the ball to bowl a third, and was dropped for the next match too. In the game against England RP Singh bowled 3 overs for 13 runs but was not given the ball to complete his quota of overs.
Dhoni has come out and blamed the batsmen for the defending champions for not having qualified even for the semi-finals, but don't the tactics and startegies of the team management also play a part in the champions being "Bounced" out of the competition, in both the super8 matches so far the Indian batsmen were danced to the old tunes of Chin music. Though one must ask the logic behind pushing the best player of short ball in the Indian team(Y. Singh) down the order and making all the players whose weakness is the short one up the order, while the only ball that the Englishmen seem to have in their arsenal, was the short ball.
Can the downfall of the Indian team be blamed on the IPL, where the interaction of the players with overseas players has led to them giving away their weaknesses more easily than previously? Also taking out the the surprise element of the young guns as their entire games is revealed through technology to all competitors! Or does this give the youngsters of India a platform to develop faster than their shortcomings ?
Well, all that the fan of Indian Cricket can do, is to pray that India does not become the England of Football(Soccer), Home to the best league in the world but unable to replicate its success into the success of the National Team.
