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"India could have sent Yuvraj Singh in earlier and given him a bit more time but they just seemed a little out of sorts"
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Ian Chappell: Amazing scenes at Lord's: the defending champions in the World Twenty20 tournament are out. India are going home after what has been a memorable battle at Lord's: England fighting tooth and nail and eventually putting India down by three runs. Quite incredible when you think that Australia went out in the first stage and now India have gone out at the second; that's two of the top three teams that were favoured, coming into the tournament
India must have thought they had a great chance of winning this game when they restricted England to 153. But England surprised them a bit with their tactics with bowling short early on in the innings. Ryan Sidebottom got a couple of early wickets pitching short and troubling the left-handers, particularly Suresh Raina. He was really bothered by the short-pitched stuff. That tactic really scored the early scoring down and India were only about 60-odd after the first 10 overs. That left a lot for their hitters to do.
It looked as though Yuvraj Singh was once again going to be England's bane. He came in and hit the first ball for six and looked as though he was going to be the saviour. But he was undone by a magnificent bit of stumping. England chose James Foster because of his wicket-keeping abilities. Well he paid his passage with that one piece of work. It was a very sharp piece of work. It took him very little time to gather the ball and take the bails off and was just enough to catch Yuvraj with his foot in the air and it looked like that had put the match very firmly in England's favour.
Sidebottom was given the luxury of having 19 up his sleeve of the last over. Pathan hit a six in the middle of the over and once again it looked like their might be a bit of a twist in the tail. Nine runs to get of two balls but they only got a single off the second-last ball and that meant that as long as Sidebottom stayed behind the line India were out of the tournament. He was able to do that; he held his nerve brilliantly and he got the Man-of-the-Match award for it.
Perhaps you could say the India could have sent Yuvraj in earlier and given him a bit more time. But they just seemed a little out of sorts. West Indies probably first put the thought in everybody's mind that a bit of short-pitched bowling might cause India some problems. They did that at Lord's on a bouncy pitch and England were clever today; there's a bit of bounce in the Lord's pitch and they added Sidebottom and dropped the leg spinner (Adil Rashid) on the basis that there was a bit more bounce and the plan worked.
The amazing thing about India's exit from the tournament is that it was their batting that saw them fail. As Dhoni said in the post-match presentation - when you are only chasing 154, you would be happy about that in a game that you have to win. It was their batting that caused them problems in the match against West Indies and on both occasions it was the opposition pitching the ball short, particularly early and troubling the Indian batsmen and putting some doubt in their mind. It's something that India will have to come to terms with; it's something that will happen to them when they are away from their own slower and lower pitches so they will have to make some adjustments.
India are on their way home now, and we will have a shoot-out between England and West Indies to decide who goes through with South Africa. It's amazing that of the big three coming into the tournament, only South Africa remain standing.
I believe that the luck of a captain has a big say on the performance of his team and more so in this format of the game. Many people in hindsight have questioned the decisions of Dhoni in the loss to England like sending Jadeja ahead of Yuvraj and not bowling RP at the death though he had given away only 13 runs in 3 overs.On the face of it they are very valid questions.But I would like to point out that in the past anything that Dhoni did turned to be a success or a 'brilliant move'. He got this tag of the luckiest and coolest captain India has ever had because of his tremendous success rate before this World Cup.I wish we would all remember that good luck is never permanent. There are bound to be ups and downs. Let us hope that Dhoni's good luck returns soon enough at least in the Tests and the ODI's so that the feel good factor of the media and fans remains.
Posted by Majr on (June 16 2009, 13:47 PM GMT)I agree that India were out of sorts in this World Cup. Their bowling seemed to lackk a plan on the lenths to bowl in England and the fields to deploy as also what approach they needed to adopt against different batsmen against whom they had played in the IPL.They could also have emulated their counterparts in this regard instead of plotting everything originally.Their feilding was of course poor. The media in India has this habit of going overboard when the team does not do well. For some reason they seemed to have something against Dhoni as could be seen in the manner they went about telling the whole world that Sehwag and Dhoni were on the verge of coming to blows. I found the whole thing quite sickening.Not unlikely that Dhoni had been discourteous them after his successful reign at the top.This adverse coverage may have had an effect on the team's performance.I wish the media would be more abjective and constructive in their reporting rather than seeking brinkmanship all the time
Posted by sairobin on (June 16 2009, 01:23 AM GMT)The overall credit for the failure of Indian Cricket in ICC T-20 goes to none other than Dhoni.He himself played test cricket in T-20 game.On W.I his 11 from 23 bals is an indication of it.He proved himself as the worst player in Indian cricket.Being a captian he didnt even go for the attack on the opposition even in the 20th over.He kept on rotating strike, building pressure on the other end batsmen.He couldnt give a minimal support to yuvi,yousuf.Though top order failed to execute,middle order got chance for making the win.But Dhoni failed himself and made yuvi and yusuf's contributions fail.I think Dinesh Karthik is better choice than dhoni.Karthik is capable of hitting at the death ovs,but Dhoni is capable of playing test crcket at the end.And moreover R.P.singh is a capable bowler and a T-20 format bowler,Ishant is a flop bowler alround the IPL.But taking him in the final team is a worst move.Even praveen kumar is capable of black hole deliveries.main cause is Dhoni's poor form
Posted by cricketfan1952 on (June 15 2009, 20:50 PM GMT)I think the reason for India's failure was purely due to lack of confidence on the part of Dhoni with his batting line up, which was changed several times in the tournament. It was indeed wrong to have sent Jadeja early even if he had done well in the IPL. Playing an international tournament is not the same as playing a local tournament. Yuvraj and Yousuf Pathan should have been given more time. Jadeja used up nearly six overs. Further, in the bowling front, it is not clear that in spite of poor performance by Ishant Sharma, he was selected just on reputation. His bowling was pathetic and did not live up to his potential. It is not clear why Indian fast bowlers never use the yorker like the rest of the teams. It will be good for India to realize that their team needs to improve and excel in all parts of the game and take other teams with the right respect. It was a sad exit for a team that on paper boasts of the best batting power.
Posted by ravic18 on (June 15 2009, 20:33 PM GMT)ms dhoni fails, dont even think about blaming JUST HIM!. in indian team there is 10 other players who can be faulted as well. ms and yusif tried their hardest in last over but good bowling held them back. ppl tlking bout sending jadeja b4 yuvi was wrong... well wake up ppl, dhoni cannot be 100% correct each bloddy time. he is human, he also makes mistakes. but anyhow, jadeja shouldn't be playing and it should've been irfan. raina wasn't in form, nor was sharma nor was gambhir... bloddy indian selectors should look at that!!!! in ipl, there was many gr8 performances from young indian openers. and plz plz plz sehwag get better soooon!!! cant blame yuvi, bhaji, yusif, rp. every1 tried their best, but fielding is major issue for india. come on boys!! ian chappell should think b4 he spks. ishant leeked runs and zak wasn't upto task at all. to finish, why play zak, jadeja??? just keep ojha and irfan in the team. thats a gr8 balance there.
Posted by Tornado1 on (June 15 2009, 19:05 PM GMT)i was amazed to see how poor suresh raina played against good short pitch bowling.Indian media is enough to spoil these sub standard super stars, and i'm sure that IPL will totally destroy indian international games in future.We all know what IPL brings in for india. All the IPL teams still rely heavily on international players to win. Last year rajisthan won due to warne, tanveer, watson and smith. now deccan won due to gilli and symond. Poor indians are now attracted towards just making easy money and following an easy path to become 'stars'.ahh i feel sorry for indians really. They need to think again about their future stategies. In my opinion IPL is still the major reason of this perfomance. what they did in this T20? Won against bangladesh & ireland? played two games against international sides and lost two. They are such a hugely talented side, but lost due to IPL....
Posted by thesandyp on (June 15 2009, 17:14 PM GMT)The only problem is that money is making them not work. Since they earn a hell lot in ipl they don't feel it necessary to work hard to win the world cup. Dhoni think that he is the best caption ever, sorry Mr DHONI, this arrogance is making u lose matches. Y the hell did DHONI hit singles instead of going for big shots when they needed 19 of 6 balls?? He is the only reason y we lost match against WI, who the hell will hit 11 out of 23 balls in T20???
Posted by MrFR on (June 15 2009, 16:18 PM GMT)LoL people said alot abt Pakistani team not being competitive enuff.....them being below par and not even a match against the Indian Titan of a team LoL well the titans are going home and our so called underdogs have yet again proved to be much more of a fighter...atleast they made it to the semi's LoL!!!!!
Posted by tanveers on (June 15 2009, 15:50 PM GMT)India lost not because of short pitched deliveries. Come on, they were not playing for the first time in England. I think the major reason for their early exit from WC is "over confidence." Yes, over confidence! There has been so much hype about them and their Mr. Cool captain. Some of the players - like Ishant Sharma - are way over rated. And if a team has this mentality that they are the batting mights that can chase down any target ... the problem starts there. I think India should start focusing on playing competitive cricket rather than dreaming of being the #1 team!
Posted by henchart on (June 15 2009, 14:29 PM GMT)Indians have killed the goose that lays golden egg.Winning the inaugural T20 world Cup as outsiders they went overboard playing T20 at the drop of the hat be it IPL ,ICL or whatever and floundered when it mattered the most.England downed India in 1987 at Bombay in Reliance Cup too despite Gavaskar,Kapil,Azhar and Vengsarkar.Bottom line is that when it is crunch time ,Indians crumble more often than not.