Where did we lose the cup?

Its been almost 4 days and I am still thinking, “what if”. As a neutral cricket fan if I am thinking so much,  imagine what must be going on in the head and hearts of the New Zealand cricketers and their fans. What a match and what a final! 14th July will forever be etched in the heart of all cricket aficionados.
 
Tons of articles have been written already about the finals and many would be written later as well but my post is not about the Cricket World Cup Final but its about the Indian Cricket Team and why we ended up as a losing semi finalist.
 
Many die hard cricket fans seem to take this loss in the semi finals as one bad day in office. Many are supporting Virat Kohli’s version as well that 45 minutes of bad cricket threw the team out of the world cup. Technically correct but actually that’s not the real story. Hence a critical analysis is a must and thats what I plan to do here.
 
Indian team for the last couple of years have been reeling under the problem of a dicey middle order in Limited Overs cricket. The primary reason for this has been that the current crop of batsmen don’t bowl at all. Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli none are decent bowlers. And there lies the difference between the class of 2011 and the class of 2019. The team of 2011 had players in the top order who could bowl economical overs and even pick up wickets. India used to have 8 bowling options in the 2011 team. A team needs to have a back up bowling option in the playing XI so that if a particular bowler has an off day then there is a back up for that eventuality.
 
Unfortunately all options tried by the team management for the last 2 years which almost culminated with Ambati Rayudu as the number 4 didn’t get them a solid batsman who could bowl decently. That left India with only option of pursuing with Kedar Jhadav at number 6 since he can bowl some offspin. Suddenly, Vijay Shankar cropped up, played a few decent knocks and bowled a few decent overs including a final over against Aussies taking 2 wickets and winning the match. Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli went over the moon with this player thinking this is going to solve their middle order conundrum and present them with a batting all rounder. Ambati Rayudu was sacrificed and Vijay Shankar got the ticket to the world cup.
 
Remember this Indian cricket team was the World Number 2 going into this world cup and everyone expected us to reach the finals at the bare minimum. Losing at the first hurdle of the knock outs was not expected. Remember this team had the best top order in the world. Only England came anywhere close. India had with them the World’s number one bowler in Bumrah and 2 Leg Spinners who have been in prime form for the last 2 years and have been controlling the middle overs. So all in all we had the best diversified bowling attack so a small chink in the armour (middle order) shouldn’t stop us from winning the cup isn’t it? But we were jolted back to reality by losing the semifinals. Why? Read on…
 
All winning teams generally have a Plan A in place which they start with and they continue with it as long as it works but they always have a Plan B and sometimes Plan C in place for eventualities which are beyond human control. All these plans are generally related to team combinations which would help the team win matches. Unfortunately the world cup proved, that the Indian team management never had a Plan B or Plan C and hence once Plan A was laid bare, they had no where to hide and hence the achilles heel (middle order) hurt them and finished them.
 
This is how India started the World Cup campaign. I mean the playing XI (India’s Plan A):
 
Rohit Sharma
Shikhar Dhawan
Virat Kohli
KL Rahul
MS Dhoni
Kedar Jhadav
Hardik Pandya
Bhuvneswar Kumar
Kuldeep Yadav
Y Chahal
Jasprit Bumrah
 
All went well for the first 2 matches. Top order got good runs and the middle order finished big. The pace bowlers took wickets and the spinners were somewhat effective but not that much to create alarm bells. Tragedy struck with Shikhar Dhawan getting injured and subsequently getting sidelined for the world cup. This meant, now Rahul had to open and Vijay Shankar has to play at number 4. Thats exactly what India did against Pakistan and India succeeded and infact having an extra bowler helped India because when Bhuvneswar Kumar got injured and left the field, Vijay bowled his overs and got a wicket as well. Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri felt a sigh of relief thinking that their Plan B (which actually was not there) has worked. But well, 2 things happened thereafter almost simultaneously. One, Vijay Shankar got injured and both our leg spinners were not able to pick up wickets in subsequent matches. So now we were in a situation where our middle order was getting exposed and our bowling also now had a chink in the armoury. Now, because of an iffy middle order our top order started batting tentatively. Its a different matter that Rohit Sharma hit 5 centuries and ended the tournament as the top scorer but in total he gave 8 opportunities to the opposition which were fluffed. So now the team management felt specially after the loss against England (in the group stage) that India needs more insurance in batting, so lengthened the batting order. Actually this was a good idea and should have been implemented from the first match because India’s strength laid there which the team management never understood because of over confidence in the batting of Rohit & Virat and the bowling of the Wrist Spinners and Bumrah. But still there was some lack of clarity from the team management. No one understood how Dinesh Karthik ended up as our number 6 in place of Jhadav when Kedar has been our number 6 and won so many matches for us in the last 2 years. Something somewhere went very wrong in the thought process and I think it only happened because they never felt the importance of having Plan B or C running into the tournament.
 
In the first warm match before the start of the World Cup, in a cloudy day at Oval, New Zealand ran through our top and middle order and India was bowled out for 180 odd and New Zealand won the match easily as batting conditions improved later in the day. India reached 180 only due to the heroics of Ravindra Jadeja who stuck a half century coming in at number 8. He also sent down quite a few economical overs but India didn’t take Jadeja in the playing XI till the last match of the group stage. What a waste of a plan the team management had.
 
Ideally just like they held back Shami, India should have held back one of the Wrist Spinners and play Jadeja from the first match. Jhadav should have been continued, didn’t understand why DK suddenly took his place. Jhadav scored a half century in the only match where he got a longish shot otherwise he was held back at number 7 which was not his fault.
 
Playing Jhadav, Jadeja and Pandya together would have meant 6 bowling options and a batting line up going upto number 8. I am very sure the result against England also could have been different with such a team and continuing with Jhadav throughout the tournament could have meant a confident middle order during crisis (semifinals). Why I say the result could have been different against England because their all conquering openers have a chink in their armoury. They don’t start well against spinners and more so against left arm spin. Whatever England scored in the first 25 overs against India was because of the blazing start that the openers gave them.
 
Anyways, its not much of use discussing by-gone events but I sincerely hope that the Indian Team Management and the BCCI selectors understand their mistakes and start building an all weather team which would be full proof with no chinks and get back the coveted world number 1 status before the world cup returns to India in 2023.
 
So how do we plan towards mission 2023? Wait for my next post…..