T20 World Cup 2022: The anatomy of a semi-final heartbreak

I began watching cricket with the 1996 World Cup, and since then have made a financially unrewarding but memorable career out of watching and rewatching cricket matches, especially those played by the Indian men’s cricket team. This career has given me, and those of my ilk, several moments of unadulterated joy and inconsolable dejection.

While crucial losses in bilateral and non-ICC multilateral tournaments have been ignored in the belief that we are meant to win bigger titles, losses in knockout matches at ICC tournaments have been harder to swallow. In these tournaments, there is somehow a sense of half-pride at losing a final and finishing runners-up with medals around our players' necks, even though there is a “so-close-yet-so-far” emotion that leaves us with mixed feelings.

However, the most painful losses have been those in the semi-finals of these tournaments, where India have faltered too frequently. Losses in the semi-finals have meant that India - the world's cricketing behemoth have been unable to participate in the climax of cricket's most viewed tournaments.

Since 1996, India have lost the semi-final of the 1996 World Cup, the 1998 Champions Trophy, the 2015 World Cup, the 2016 T20 World Cup, the 2019 World Cup, and most recently, the 2022 T20 World Cup. Admittedly, there have been more semi-final wins – in the 2000 and 2002 Champions Trophies, the 2003 World Cup, the 2013 Champions Trophy, the 2014 T20 World Cup, and the 2017 Champions Trophy. The Men in Blue were fortunate enough to secure title victories 2007 T20 World Cup and the 2011 ODI World Cup.

Yet, we have faltered in that wretched semi-final stage in four out of the last six ICC tournaments, winning just once. But I am not here as a cricket pundit to carry out a post-mortem of these defeats, because I am both incapable and unwilling to do so. The truth is that in 2015 and 2019, India were the best-performing team going into the semi-finals. Even in 2022, we somehow had more points than any other team at the end of the pre-knockout stage.

The reason behind these heartbreaking losses perhaps lies in that oft-repeated phrase used in most sports – the ability to handle pressure. But that too is somewhat counterintuitive, because Indian cricketers are perhaps more used to handling pressure than most other professional sportspersons. The other theory is that while we can “handle pressure”, we can’t quite thrive on it, which inhibits our players’ performance in these big matches, especially in modern T20 games which demand sustained fearlessness.

It certainly did seem like that in Thursday’s semi-final, where our batters didn’t quite crumble under pressure, but seemed weighed down by it. Contrast this to the 2007 T20 World Cup, where our team, under a new and untested captain and without most of its batting stalwarts, played with a refreshing free-spiritedness to lift the title.

Obviously, there is no guaranteed recipe for success, and it is quite possible that teams without a care in the world would flounder miserably and be ruthlessly critiqued for not playing a more serious brand of cricket. But from a viewers’ perspective, the country with the greatest abundance of talent and opportunities must play a brand of cricket that reflects such abundance.

English Cricket went through a similar period of soul-searching, before settling for a style that is as entertaining as it has been effective, as was proved by their utterly dominant performances in the semi-final and final of the 2022 T20 World Cup.

There is no denying that Indian cricket viewers are impatient, unreasonable, and in the modern world of social media, often nasty. There is also no denying that this makes it harder for our cricketers not to fear for their places in the team. But cricketers are as much "performers" as they are heroes on national duty.

The more reasonable cricket fans do not mind another semi-final heart-break, if we get to watch our players play with joy and freedom. For our sake, dear Indian cricket players, please shut down the noise that bogs you down, and return to us the joy of watching you play. You are too talented and skilled to let fear and doubt prevail. No pressure, please!