Indias T20 WC 2010 campaign in Hindsight
All the Indian news channel and newspaper are hanging on to every word that a hassled Dhoni said about the late night IPL parties, which according to him is one of the reasons for the Indian Players dismal performance at the T20 WC this time.
Today everybody is scrutinizing the captaincy of Dhoni. Unluckily for him, all his tactics backfired. Yes he made tactical errors. But I must agree that he went as per everyone's advice in the last game by bringing in the necessary changes and opting to bat first. But then, it was a complete disaster. Our bowling, batting and fielding were never upto the mark. I would never blame Dhoni for this debacle. Also, though IPL was strenuous, I dont think that was the only reason why India failed.
More than anything it was a mediocre team selection. On what basis was the T20 team selected? They should have gone by form rather than the past performance of the players.
It was a total suprise to see guys like Gambir, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan and Jadeja being selected. While the first 3 were totally out of form even in the IPL, the last one had no match practice, as he was banned from the recent IPL. What options did Dhoni have, if he had dared to leave out the likes of Gambir, Yuvraj Singh, and Yusuf Pathan. These three guys were the backbone of the Indian batting lineup and they were complete failures and added to that their fielding was horrendous. Why does Nehra get picked again and again despite his terrible performance in every format possible? His bowling is a Nightmare! Thankfully the out-of-form Sehwag opted out with an injury otherwise he undoubtedly would have been a part of the failures list. Except for Raina, there was no real performer in the team. You cant win matches when it is actually 1 vs 11 in the field.
Why did all the media channels keep quite when the team was announced. Why did they not make a hue and cry and why did they not have any of their so called expert debates then?
Why didnt the selectors opt for a T20 team which would comprise of at least 6-7 T20 specialists. It need not be purely on the IPL performances- but still we could have taken the likes of Ojha, R.Ashwin, Manish Pandey, Tiwary, Rayudu, Irfan Pathan, Sangwan, Sumanth, Suman, Jaskaran Singh, Uthappa etc.
If you look at some of the succesful teams like Australia, England - there are only 4 -5 regular one day players in their T20 team. The rest were T20 specialists and that's why they have been able to perform so well and so consistently.
The entire T20 team selection has to be re-looked into. Select the players who can bat or bowl and field well. Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer & Harbhajan needs to be a part of only the Test and the One day teams.
Before blaming the Captain, provide him with the ammunition that is required to lead his team to victory. Also there needs to be an equally good bench strength which will give him a good option to opt for a change, if someone is not able to perform.
Luckily for us, we do have a good set of T20 players, but unluckily most of them were left out of the team. Hope in the future our selectors will use better logic in selecting a T20 team.
Also the media will do better if they make a hue and cry, when some change or action is possible and not do it as a post-mortem
Comments
Post a Comment