If You Fail To Prepare, Be Prepared To Fail

The continuous failure of world champions India after 2011 world cup triumph whether its eight straight overseas defeat ,or their early exit from major tournaments like Asia cup , world T20 or the recent exit of top IPL teams like Chennai Super Kings , Mumbai Indians and the winners of this years IPL Kolkata Knight Riders from he Champions League T20 ,the one factor which is common for their such inconsistent performance is lack of match preparation.

Indians were having a task in hand before the ICC cricket world cup 2011 and after completion of the task normally teams get carried away in celebrations and often donot have a future strategy , thats why except Australia none of the country had not only repeated their performances in world cups but also dominated in the cricket .But Indians have not got time to get carried away in celebrations also , the only thing which is keeping them away to perform their best is the busy international schedule.

The modern day cricket demands players to switch between formats  and perform continuously . It is really appreciable the way players have  adapted themselves to this changing demand. But with so much back to back cricket going on ,the technical term “form “ of the players is being replaced by the “day” of the players. With the advent of most uncertain format ,the players performance also became uncertain. They don’t get  enough time to improvise and over come their mistakes  and hence the players who is currently not making any mistakes is said to be in good  touch on the other hand  the one who is not in his best of touch continues to perform  below par .The recent exit of India in the major tournaments is not because it is a bad team it’s the fact that they have many  players who are not having best of their days in the middle and actually have not got enough  time to work on that .No matter whether the team is a world champion or an average team if  you donot prepare well ,you just cannot expect a favorable result .

Maximum players of England and Australia keep themselves away from the IPL so as to prepare themselves for the upcoming series for their nation and the recent performance of these teams proves that they are actually doing it right .On the contrary India plays with almost same team through out the year in all the formats ,and all players compulsorily play in IPL . Proper planning need to be done urgently looking at the terrible failure of Indian team in recent times whether its opting for three different captains and keeping different teams for all the three formats or players keeping themselves  away from the IPLs .However the later doesn’t seem to be fit in the Indian context looking at the competition among players  for each position ,the only possibility is if board itself take decision for the betterment of Indian team .

Sri Lanka Is Winning ICC World T20 2012

In a hall ,located on the first floor of the Sinhalese Sports Club Stadium in the heart of Colombo , a cup gleams alone under the light .It is the biggest affirmation of Sri Lanka’s cricketing prowess and it is not just another cup it is the world cup that they won in 1996 .Since than Sri Lanka has never looked back and its hence the second best dossier reads : Runner-up in the 2007 and 2011 World Cups , Losing finalist in the 2009 ICC World Twenty20  are some silver ware which defines their so-near-and yet-so- far tale .As now once again Sri Lanka has entered into the world T20 final the script doesn’t get any better for them to add another glittering trophy and emerge as a Champion from just being the eternal bridesmaid in ICC tournaments.

With the other favorites have already taken their flights back to home with India beating all the defending champions England ,former champions Pakistan and the current ranked no. 1 in ICC T20 South Africa but lost the one which mattered against Australia -who has past inept rivals before getting hypnotised by the Pakistani spinners and than lost to West Indies the way you have never seen them before have actually justified their ranking in the ICC T20 and their exit from the tournament .With Pakistan as usual seemed to suffer from the  self destructive itch against Sri Lanka and the world no. 1 actually standing  last in the group and the members of Group 2( group of death ) are all dead now.

Before the tournament West Indies has been hyped as one of the strong contenders of winning this world T20 edition , probably that’s what have acted as catalyst behind their strong performance against Australia ,lets not talk about how they made it to the Semi’s .Now they are going to face Sri Lanka and beating them at their home is considered even more difficult than beating India or Australia in their home turf.

The stage is all set to have a new champion this time and we have two highly motivated teams as a finalist in the world T20 ,who will not let any stone unturned to prove themselves and regain some dominance in the world cricket .For me , Sri Lanka is surly going to make it this time with having both home advantage and electrifying home support in their  favor and of course by playing the good cricket and taking all precautionary measures to deal with Gayle Storm as there is already a warning from him..!!  

Sometimes Winning Is Not Enough

Victories of all shades ranging from the diffident to the emphatic  ,interspersed by a shattering loss against Australia and than a tricky exit from the tournament ,that’s what defines the India’s journey in the ICC world Twenty 20 . And as usual in the process of doing postmortem of India’s defeat like a true Indian cricket team fan we came to some very logical conclusions like - Australia conspired to lose to put India and South Africa out , South Africa has spoiled the Indian party ,they should have lost it under 121(because we so hate it when other countries don't play according to India's needs).

In a format which equalizes both sides sometimes only winning is not enough . If we talk about this world T20 in particular where the four teams of semi finals are not decided until the last match is been played we should learn a important fact that the difference between almost winning and actually winning a match is that the former doesn’t count . So if we now accept the reality and analyze what actually went wrong than we will find India itself is responsible for their such unfortunate exit .Starting from the India Vs England match where both team have already qualified for the super eights and considering the fact that spin has always been a problem for Poms we should not have played with three spinners against Australia .Playing five bowlers is so unlikely Dhoni’s way ,that huge loss against Australia have actually made the India’s task tougher ,considering the group in which India is playing . How can you expect a team to win a match against team like Australia without playing with their regular opener , if Sehwag was injured or what ever may be the reason for not including him in the side than India should have a back up opener .Blaming  rain of just five minutes is not the way to justify your lose when you actually have not putted enough runs on the board .

Many are satisfied with the Indian performance because India have won the match which actually mattered i.e. the one against arch rival Pakistan . Winning in that match with eighteen balls left instead of the required nineteen to have a better run rate than Pakistan have only complicated the equation. The next match became must win for every team, and the situation was very much in Pakistan favor .History says that Pakistan plays exceptionally well when they are in a do or die situation ,than how can you expect them to flunk when the situation is so much in their strength zone .At least I was pretty assured that Pakistan was going to win that match .

With that Pakistan win ,South Africa had nothing to lose but India have many things to achieve .The things started getting wrong from the Toss itself , as Indian have to bat first they have to put a big total on the board and that extra pressure have left India short of fifteen to twenty runs and eventually India could only post a modest target of 153 which Dhoni is so good at defending .But India had to win it by 32 and since we had digged the  hole ourselves, we need to find a way to claw out of it .India started off brilliantly but since the result was not in our favor Dhoni’s decision to save his best bowlers and delaying Ashwin’s spell cost India the semi final berth .

India has been in such situation many times under Dhoni’s captaincy and nothing less than win is expected from our  team ,but as only two teams from a group can advance to the semi finals we have accept the truth  and to take positives from it and must admit that Indian bowlers, contrary to the expectations, did exceptionally well , but it’s the batting which let the team down.