Final Fiasco- What Went Wrong for India against Pak?

On the evening before the mega finals against arch rivals Pakistan, the Indian skipper Virat Kohli was addressing a press conference where he was praising Pakistan team’s turnaround in the tournament and went on to assert that Pakistan could beat any team of the world on their day. While it was a statement to express the positive intent and agility of the Indian team ahead of the final, little did Kohli know that his words would come so true on the big day. Pakistan registered an emphatic win over India and dethroned them from the Champions Trophy title with style.

So what went wrong for the Men in Blue? A team which was clinical throughout the tournament had to be the favorite to lift the trophy, particularly when the opposition was a relatively inexperienced Pakistan side. But courage and resilience as they say, often gets the better of experience and skill, and this is exactly what we saw at the Oval on Sunday. So, let us try to understand the shortcomings of our Indian team on the day when their faults hurt them the most, and in fact hurt all of us the most.

Starting from the toss, like many have reckoned post India’s defeat, Kohli should have opted for batting and should have tried to put runs on the board in a high pressure game.  For the team selection part, among other frailties of the team, I strongly feel that the Indian batting lacked someone like an Ajinkya Rahane to provide that stability to the middle order. However, we must concede that India had followed the strategy of chasing targets and had gone with almost the same combination all through the Champions Trophy, and their campaign as we all know had been quite successful before the final turmoil. Toss and playing 11 are the skipper’s prerogative and the thinking that these could have changed the complexion of the game is an entirely hypothetical proposition. So let me come straight to the things which India actually did on the field, rather than crying on the things which they didn’t.

First and foremost, I think that India were erroneous in their gauging of the opposition’s ability. It turned out to be a massive strategic failure on the part of Kohli and the team management. This could be clearly seen when India was bowling as the bowlers went into a highly defensive mode, thus giving the Pak batsmen an opportunity to score freely. At one point of time, it seemed that Kohli was perhaps content with Pakistan just getting about 300, as it supposedly looked quite achievable for India. May be the batting strength and the form of the Indian batsmen gave him this confidence, but in the hindsight this complacency indeed proved to be detrimental for the team.  

Undisciplined bowling and sloppy fielding made the execution of the plans all the more difficult for India. There were 25 extras conceded in the Pak innings, which hurt India badly. Not to forget Fakhar Zaman’s caught behind of a no-ball and the irreparable damage it caused thereafter. Also, there were a lot of missed run out opportunities, especially in the first 15 overs.

While bowling was a somewhat tolerable disappointment given the conditions and the pitch, batting was a terrible letdown. India had arguably the best and the most in-form batting line-up in the tournament, and to see them surrender in such a way was highly disheartening. There was a time in Indian cricket, during the mid 1990’s when the entire Indian batting almost revolved around Sachin Tendulkar. I would not call that period as a very healthy phase for Indian cricket, as we were heavily dependent on one or may be a couple of players. I am afraid we are moving towards the same kind of excessive dependency again, and the burden of expectations has now shifted from Sachin to Kohli. How often we have seen Kohli failing and the rest of the batting fall like a house of cards, especially in crunch games like these. Remember the World Cup 2015 Semifinal?  There is always one superstar in a team, but we must remember that cricket is a team game and the other batsmen must rise up to the occasion in case the superstar fails. Sadly, this did not happen in the final and Pakistan ripped through the Indian batting line up.

Among certain other factors, one significant factor which can never be overlooked in any game is the luck factor. To be just fair to India, probably it was not their day. It was all happening at the Oval- miscued edges, ball in the air, tough chances at the boundary, close calls for LBW, run out chances, but nothing went India’s way. May be on any other day, India would have got its share of fortunes and the result could have been something different, but it was not to be. Pakistan emerged as the winners, and quite deservingly so.

With less than two years to go for the World Cup, Indian cricket now has some serious questions to be addressed . Every defeat brings with it an opportunity to learn and introspect. We have strong faith in the abilities and the potential of our players and are pretty sure that they would bounce back strongly. As a fan and a cricket lover, I have done my part of analysis and introspection. Let’s see how the world number three team reacts to this agonizing defeat.

Eagerly waiting to see our lions roar again….

An ardent Indian cricket lover