Overs 19 and 20 of the Sri Lankan innings in their critical Super Eights match summed up Team India’s apathy towards the World T20 Championships in the Caribbean this year. As Chamara Kapugedara’s six sailed over

long-on and the Lankans cruised past the 143-run mark, India had failed to reach the last four of the T20 Worlds for the second year running.
What followed thereafter was an amateurish display as the Indians lost the will to fight and conceded 33 runs from the last two overs to lose yet another Super Eights match. It is pertinent to note that India has not won a single Super Eights match after their title-winning run in 2007.
Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is running out of excuses to defend his side. The inaugural World T20 champions looked inexplicably jaded and lethargic in their performances this year.
Players like Mahela Jayawardene (292 runs in five matches) and Dirk Nannes (13 wickets in five matches) — the highest run-scorer and wicket-taker respectively in the tournament so far — built on the gains from IPL-3 while Indians were happy to sit on their laurels. Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni himself looked a shadow of themselves and as a result thoroughly exposed the team in Virender Sehwag’s absence.
“The Indians looked jaded throughout the tournament and the passion that was so evident in the IPL was completely missing. They had plenty of time to prepare themselves but once again they were exposed on bouncy surfaces,” former India batsman Mohinder Amarnath told this newspaper.
The slow St. Lucia surface lulled India into a false sense of security. Suresh Raina, who plonked his front foot down to the South African speedsters and hammered a 60-ball hundred in the second match of the tournament, was exposed like his colleagues on the bouncier Kensington Oval track.
After the 49-run walloping at the hands of Australia, Dhoni’s explanation for India’s failure was inability of the Indian batsmen to play the horizontal bat shots.
“India’s lack of adaptability has been a disappointment. What is baffling is that even though most batsmen showed a distinct sense of discomfort against the short ball during the World Twenty20 in England last year, they were picked again for an event on even bouncier pitches in the Caribbean,” former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar said.
Sehwag’s replacement Murali Vijay survived the short-ball assault but failed to get the scoreboard moving, Gambhir looked completely out of sorts while Rohit Sharma tailed off after a fine knock against Australia. “Indians are nothing but flat track bullies. The inability to play pull shots is nothing but an excuse. I have always felt that Viru is our best player against fast bowling and the others need to take some tips from him,” Amarnath added.
India’s approach to their final game in St. Lucia was bewildering. Gambhir and Raina had laid a wonderful platform for an onslaught after posting 90 runs in the first nine overs. The next 11 overs produced just 77 more runs and Indians ended up with a disappointing first innings total on a beautiful batting surface.
“Only 73 runs were scored in the last 10 overs despite having nine wickets in hand. There is no explanation for that. Tactically Yusuf Pathan should have come up in the batting order. Selectors will have to look for T20 players who can play in all kind of conditions,” former India all-rounder Ravi Shastri felt.
One of India’s most successful skippers Sourav Ganguly feels the IPL is not the platform to judge the quality of T20 players. It is now evident how misplaced Shane Warne was in calling Yusuf Pathan’s hundred against Mumbai Indians this year as the “greatest innings he had ever seen”. After all their pyrotechnics in IPL-3, no Indian batsmen apart from Raina scored even 100 runs in the tournament, Dhoni was the second highest scorer with 85.
Even the argument that IPL late night parties were tiring for the players fall flat considering the fact that the same lethargy was not evident in Australian, Sri Lankan and English players.
“The IPL is a domestic tournament and the standard is much lower than a world event where you are up against quality batsmen and bowlers. You don’t expect to go to the World Cup semi-finals if you play cricket like the way the team has played in the Caribbean,” Ganguly said.

WHERE’S THE MIDAS TOUCH?

We had come to address Dhoni as the man with the “midas touch” after India’s impressive run in Tests and ODIs. Mahi’s inspirational captaincy was also on show at the IPL-3 final when he brilliantly plotted Kieron Pollard’s dismissal. The decision to place a mid-off almost dead straight behind the bowler showed the amount of planning that Dhoni does for a T20 match.
All that was missing when it came to the T20 Worlds. Dhoni was rigid in his plans continuing to play with only two specialist pacers on a bouncy Kensington Oval. The persistence with the part-time spin of Ravindra Jadeja was even more baffling.
Back-to-back failures in World T20 tournaments raises the question whether Dhoni is the right man to lead India in this format of the game.
“Of all the tournaments Dhoni has led India in, this is the most disappointing. At times you can be stubborn and stick to your ideas but he might want to be a little more flexible in future,” Shastri said.
India have a lot of work to do ahead of the 2011 World Cup in the subcontinent early next year. Their record in ICC tournaments barring the inaugural World T20 tournament has been shocking.
In the 50-over format, Team India failed to progress beyond the first round in the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean while the 2009 Champions Trophy campaign in South Africa ended in the Super Eights stage. The record is no better in the World T20 in England.
Dhoni has been at the helm in all these competitions apart from the 2007 World Cup. The wicketkeeper-batsman has a lot of work to do for India to have a serious shot at the world title next year.