ICC World T-20: For India History repeats itself

It was June 2009. The world watched, dumbstruck, as two of the favourites to win the 2^nd edition of the T20 World Cup made their way out. The early Australian exit did come as a shock for many but some remained unperturbed about their 1^st round debacle because of the fact that the team, having lost many of its cricket legends, was only a shadow of its former, almost invincible outfit. The more disquieting episode and perhaps the biggest upset of the tournament was the ouster of the defending champions, India, failing to win any of their Super 8 draws. Their dismal performance sent shock waves through out the cricketing forum and its reputation was put at stake. Despite of being rich in resources, India’s poor performance in the Championship prompted the cricket pundits to come up with some strong reasons to justify their poor performance.

Sachin ducks the short ball.

Many issues were raised, some blamed it on the fatigue amongst the players, some were content with the fact that the team just missed the exploits of Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan while many roped in IPL to fill in the void of a scapegoat. Although, each one of these reasons did have a certain role to play in the team’s lacklustre performance, the major reason was graver and lesser made note of. It was the West Indian pace battery that started the downfall with some sharp short pitch bowling. And it didn’t take time for the rest of the world to see what had actually transpired. The woeful campaign laid bare for all to see the glaring flaws which should have been ironed out long before they reach the international level.The world had found a major weaklink in the famed Indian batting line up and it was more than enough to drive them through the wall. Almost every batsman in the team possessed technical faults while facing the short pitch stuff. And the entire team fell down like a house of cards down once their weakness was out for everyone to capitalize on.

At the international level for such a thing to happen is a rare feat. Every batsman has some faults but rarely does it happen that the entire team has a particular inadequacy. From the point of view of an adversary, it is very much like possessing a detonator in a war that can wipe off the entire opposition within a matter of seconds.

With such a troublesome outing last time and with so much at stake, one would expect professionals like them to resolve whatever indiscretions they had within a span of 10 months. But the proceedings in the Caribbean had a similar story to tell. The best that they could do against a short pitch ball was to let it go through to the keeper thereby lowering the risk of getting out, irrespective of the situation of the match – be it in the powerplays or in the death overs. What was the Indian think tank expecting – the world would forget what had transpired less than a year ago or would they be kind enough not to make the Indian batsmen go through something similar to the last year’s campaign. If this is how it remains it will not be long when the ill effects start trickling into the ODIs and Tests as well.

Yuvraj ducks a bouncer, see the difference!

What has to be done is not difficult a task in itself apart from the fact that many might consider it to be against their pride. As Sourav Ganguly puts it “if you are not performing well at the top level, go back to the basics”, a stint at the domestic level will go a long way in polishing the skill and finesse and flattening out the faults.

The balls have begun rolling back and the history is one the verge of repeating itself.India would once again be categorised as paper tigers, a team that is threatening only when playing in its own backyard, a tag which it has tried so hard to get rid of in the past decade, a tag that could now so easily get attached once again.