Of wisecracks, turning tracks and gambles: India's World T20 journey

Horses for courses – Part timers have a sell by date too

You can’t have an irregular bowler like Suresh Raina as a regular long-term option

Dhoni’s ploy of using part timers is well known in cricketing circles. What it underlines, however, is the cold, harsh reality that India have almost always lacked a genuine fifth bowler.

Okay, so you have Raina bowling his gentle off-breaks, or Yuvraj sending down his “pie-chuckers”. They do a good job of filling up the seven or eight overs of bowling, perhaps even pick up a couple of wickets here and there.

But they are part-timers, not regular bowlers. You cannot expect them to work miracles every single time. In nine years of his limited-overs leadership, MSD has cleverly utilized them; however, despite having the likes of Harbhajan Singh and Pawan Negi in the ranks, he went with the tried-and-tested model instead.

Yuvraj’s injury may have thrown India's planning off a bit, but there were reserves. If the West Indies could bring back a recently-recovered Simmons, then why not take a leaf out of their book and bring in the aforementioned spinners (even Mohammad Shami could have been a good choice)?

Long-term results are not obtained by short-term strategies. Part timer models have a sell-by date, and unfortunately for India, they became aware of it only after tasting defeat at the second-to-last stage.