It was 1987 all over again. Playing under the pressure of being defending champions besides enjoying home advantage, Kapil Dev's men, against all expectations, failed to retain the World Cup they had won in England four years before. Similiarly under pressure, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his squad crashed out of the ICC World Twenty20 and could not bring back the cup they won in South Africa two years ago.
As only to be expected the post portems have started and as usual a balanced perspective has not been maintained while analysing the defeat. In India, we have the tendency of going overboard when it comes to both praise and criticism. We raise ordinary players to the status of gods in India, when they do well and rip them apart when they make a couple of errors of judgment.
Needlessly, the Indians were installed as favorites in a format that is a lottery, a gamble. The shorter the game the more level the playing field as some of the results - Ireland shocking Bangladesh, Netherlands stunning England and Australia being knocked out at the preliminary stage itself - illustrated so graphically.
On the eve of the tournament, cricketers both from India and abroad made special mention of the Indian team being a balanced one. Opinion polls everywhere pointed out to India retaining the trophy they won in the inaugural edition two years ago. Much was also made of the fact that all the members of the Indian team participated in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and how that would stand them in good stead though they were the detractors who warned that the players would be mentally fatigued because of their exertions in the cash-rich tourney.
I was of the view that any one of half a dozen teams stood a realistic chance of winning the trophy in a very open field. If the Indians were a balanced side the same could be said about many of the other competing teams too. Ultimately, it would all depend on which team held it nerves better on the day. We had seen enough of cricket’s newest and shortest format to understand that it is not all slam-bang and there is a place for tactical planning and matters of strategy. But there is also a huge chunk of luck that goes into every Twenty20 game and under the circumstances there cannot be any real favorites. One has only to glance at the results in the IPL and the World Cup and see the number of close finishes. I have always maintained that predicting results in Twenty20 cricket is a mug's game.
I had said in an earlier column that India would find games against West Indies, England and South Africa very different from playing Ireland and Bangladesh and could in fact suffer from figuring in a lop-sided preliminary group. Matches against Ireland and Bangladesh were hardly the kind of preparation any team would want for sterner tests ahead. And while West Indies and England after tougher encounters in the preliminary league were well prepared India apparently were not.
Several factors could be laid out as reasons for the champions being knocked out at the Super Eight stage itself - Kapil’s men 22 years before at least made it to the semi-finals – and analyses would be loud and long. The absence of Virender Sehwag at the top of the order was certainly one. Rohit Sharma performed admirably as his replacement but then Sehwag is altogether in another league. The needless elevation of Ravindra Jadeja to No 4 in the crunch game against England has come in for a lot of criticism and for once the critics are justified. Then of course there were several small errors - tactical and otherwise - during the games that tend to be compounded when the team makes an early exit.
Ultimately it was a collective failure though one supposes as captain Dhoni will get most of the flak - which does seem fair enough considering that he got most of the credit for the glorious triumph two years ago, while there will be those who are convinced that playing in the IPL just prior to figuring in the ICC World Twenty20 led to the Indian team's inglorious showing.