Saturday, 29 December 2012

First t20 world cup champs no more in sight now??

Young indian team lead by Mahendra Singh Dhoni on 2007 stunned everyone by winning the inugural world t20 world cup. Indian team played that tournament without the legends Sachin, Saurav and Dravid. But what happend to indian team in the shortest format after the first t20 world cup that they keep loosing after that.

It will be astonishing to know in T20 cricket, a format in which India ruled the world, they have been suffering more reversals than victories. After stunning everyone by winning the inaugural World T20 in South Africa under a new captain, MS Dhoni, and a fresh team, India have struggled under the same man to replicate that success.



Interestingly they have not qualified beyond the Super Eights in last three successive WorldT20 tournaments after the first winning one. Till now they had not won even a single T20 bilateral series comprising more than one game. And all this despite possessing the most highprofile, cash-rich T20 league in the world, the IPL.



Tuesday's defeat at the hands of arch-rivals Pakistan, though a close one, showed yet again that the millionaires of IPL are paupers in T20 Internationals. So, what ails our Men in Blue in instant cricket? This is not a format which requires us to discover express pace bowlers or batsmen who can score in any condition - something that is a must to excel in Test cricket.
Everyone talks about there is no deficiency of talent in india. In the shortest format india have IPL league as talent recognisation. If there is so much talent, why do we lose so often? i guess the problem is to find right combination for the format. We does give chances to young fresh talents. we are the team who just repeat or gives more or more chances either they perform or not.
Murali Vijay played 13 matches without a fifty only because he is from south or somehow he performed good in IPL. Selectors have to understand that IPL is played in india where ball does not bounce uper than knees unless it is a beemer. Whether in foreign coutries balls keeps high and batsman face difficulties.
BCCI should also make bouncy pitches in india. So that our new young fresh talent can face the bouncy balls. If you will look at the worldcups in t20 in which india did not qualified in supereight. The maximum no of batsman was feared by the bouncers or they were unable to play.


India need to repeat the model that succeeded in SA in September '07. Our Team won then because the boys were pretty young and energetic. In the next few editions of the T20 World Cups, our players were older, and their reflexes, slower. 
A big advantage of that 'young' team was the fielding it displayed. Perhaps it was the best Indian fielding side ever. Who can forget Dinesh Karthik's diving catch in the slips to pouch Graeme Smith? That team affected as many as seven run outs (five of them were direct hits) as the young turks threw themselves around. Surely, fielding deserves more points in T20 cricket. Slow movers are a strict no-no and India still 'carry' a few of them in the T20 side, purely because they happen to be star cricketers in other formats.
A case in point being Virender Sehwag's selection ahead of Ajinkya Rahane for the WorldT20 in Sri Lanka. It is important to have speed and strength in T20. That applies to both the bowler and the batsman. We need to pick players based on their skill sets.

Confusion over what combination suits us in T20 cricket hasn't helped. Though Dhoni has been the skipper of the team for more than five years now, there has been too much chopping and changing. In the last 10 games, India have changed their playing XI eight times. Delhi seamer Parwinder Awana was played in two games, got hammered, and was left out.

Team management should give chances to young and fresh talent in the shortest formet of the game and should bring and talented faces also on regular interval. BCCI should module on bouncing pitches. If we have to win a series our team management will also have to work on team combination. The other teams have improved since 2007. There is a lot of T20 cricket played in other countries now and their players play in the IPL too.


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