NEW DELHI, Nov 10: In yet another failed mission, India was thrown out of the T20 cricket world cup campaign by a thoroughly professional England which seems to have reinvented the grammar of T20 batting crushing India to a humiliating 10 wickets defeat in the second semi-final at Adelaide on Thursday.
The match was virtually won and loss in the six overs of powerplay in which the team India adopted a safety-first approach producing just 38 runs for the loss of one wicket and England racing to 63 without a wicket to finally annihilate an out-of-sync India by a massive 10 wickets in just 16 overs to sail into the World Cup final where Pakistan is waiting for the winner of Thursday’s semi-final for the final match on Sunday.
As Alex Hales and Jos Buttler’s relentless hitting mortified Rohit Sharma’s clueless attack in Adelaide, England looked to have saved their best for the grand stage as they reduced the semifinal to a lop-sided affair, courtesy a splendid bowling effort which they complemented with some breath-taking stroke-making.
It was Hardik Pandya (68 off 33 balls), whose fearless hitting took India to 168 for six which then looked to be a good score but India’s toothless bowling attack made it far less than even a par score. England captain Butler (80 not out) set the tone with three boundaries off Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s opening over but it was Hales (86 not out off) who butchered the Indian attack into submission. The England opening duo gave India’s star-studded line-up a lesson in how to build a T20 innings: that there is only one way, the offensive way.
Bhuvneshwar and Arshdeep Singh didn’t get enough swing up front and team management’s fascination to play Axar Patel (0/30 in 4 overs) and Ravichandra Ashwin (0/27 in 2 overs) ahead of Yuzvendra Chahal backfired badly. In the batting line-up, Rohit Sharma continued to fail in every match at the opening slot getting out caught while trying to hit every ball for a sixer without bothering about the merit of the ball. KL Rahul’s (5) abject failure against bigger teams looked even more pronounced as Chris Woakes exposed his shortcomings with extra bounce in the second over.
But if India scored at least 20 runs less, blame it on skipper Rohit Sharma (27 off 28 balls) and the first 10 overs that yielded only 62 runs. In a semifinal, consuming 42 dot balls (effectively 7 maiden overs) doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Had it not been for the sixes that Hardik hit off Sam Curran (0/42) and Jordan, India would have ended with a below-par score as Kohli, despite his fourth half-century in the tournament, couldn’t up the ante.
With Thursday’s defeat, the long and excruciating wait for a ‘World Cup’ title continues for the Indian team. Be it the 2019 ODI World Cup, the 2021 T20 World Cup or 2022 edition of the T20 World Cup, the lack of success in these campaigns continues to haunt the Indian team.
While In the powerplays, India’s batting was among the worst in the tournament, the absence of a wrist-spinner has also cost the team dearly as the management all through the tournament persisted with Ravichandra Ashwin and Axar Patel. The team selector also could not find a suitable replacement for the pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah who was injured and was not picked for the tournament.
(Manas Dasgupta)