Why Do The Indian Team Fail To Perform Well In The Knock Out Stages Of ICC Tournaments.?-Mainly ICC 50-Over World Cups

                         First of all I am not going to discuss about the 20 over world cups.  Because if you are having a bad day then you would end up  losing that match.  So let’s get more traditional, in to the 50 over format.

                          Cricket is a part and parcel of so many people in India and cricket players are worshipped like gods and are also hated like demons in this nation.  The Indian cricket team has had huge success over the last 40 years, and this nation has produced some all time greats like Sachin, Kapil dev, Sunil gavaskar, Rahul dravid, Sourav ganguly, Mahendra singh Dhoni, Virat kohli, Rohit Sharma, Zaheer khan, Harbhajhan singh,Yuvi and a lot of others.

  But some how it is dreadful to hear a fact that India have not stepped up in the knockout rounds of the 50-over World cups and champions trophies and this has been a repetition after 2013. Many of us have this question in our minds and I will provide the answer for this.

                                Firstly in those periods in the 80’s and 90’s India were only a developing team used to cause famous upsets around.  But after 2003 India established themselves as one of the heavyweights in the world.  When thinking of this aspect few words said by Nasser hussain, the former English captain. 

 “India were always a good team, but Ganguly made them a tough team”.

Ganguly And His Warriors In 2003.

  This is true that Ganguly made India as a tough team and Dhoni made them a Champion side.  Now Virat is leading the group of Invincibles,  this is how India developed into a heavyweight, also we should know that since 2013 India have never won an ICC Tournament.

                                  If you look beyond the year 2013, most of the legends that India produced like Tendulkar, Sehwag, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj fell off the radar.  And India had to build a young squad.  In 2015 World cup India had the potential to do it but couldn’t do it because of huge lack of inexperience in the batting order.  Lack of experience in the batting order causes troubles in big matches such as a semifinal or a final.  But the situation in 2019 was even more worser than the previous one.  India never had a confirmed middle order.  Rishabh walked in at some matches Dinesh karthik played in some of those Vijay Shankar played in some of those matches and India didn’t really knew who could they play in the middle order.  Apart all these factors we now should look at India’s performance in knockout stages(Excluding quarter finals) the world cups from 1983

      INDIA’S PERFORMANCE IN KNOCK OUT STAGES OF THE ICC WORLDCUPS

YEAR			POSITION	OPPOSITION		RESULT	BAT 1ST OR 2ND
1983			Semi-finals	England		won	2nd
1983			Finals	West Indies		won	1st
1987			Semi-finals	England		lost	2nd
1996			Semi-finals	Sri Lanka		lost	2nd
2003			Semi-finals	Kenya		won	1st
2003			Finals	Australia		lost	2nd
2011			Semi-finals	Pakistan		won	1st
2011		Finals		Sri Lanka	won		2nd
2015		Semi-finals		Australia	lost		2nd
2019	Semi-finals			New Zealand	lost		2nd

India have played in 7 Semi-finals and have lost four out of those seven matches.  What is the common factor striking to us in all those semifinals, is India have batted second in all of the semi-finals that they have lost.  But after 2013 it’s been far worse, because India have lost all the Knock out games of ICC tournaments while  batting second!  Sounds crazy isn’t it?  But it is the dark truth.  Certainly I’m not talking about Champions trophy Semi-final against Bangladesh,  Because that game was like School boys vs International players.

So now let’s come forward to a point.  Why do India lose while batting 2^nd in the World cup semifinals? There are two reasons: one, inexperienced middle order or Inconsistent middle order, and the other reason is less contribution from top order growing pressure on Middle order.

Now let’s get to the first reason.

1.     INEXPERIENCED MIDDLE ORDER OR INCONSISTENT MIDDLE ORDER.

                                                         The Middle order is likely the heart of a team. Your Middle order batsmen, that is no.4,5 and 6 are so important, you need them to contribute or otherwise your team will be in so much danger.  India have had so many problems on who to select at no. 4 and no. 5 after the 2013 champions trophy.  They selected some good players like Ambati rayudu, kedar Jadhav, Dinesh karthik, Ajinkya Rahane, but no one sealed their place at the no.4 and no.5 spot.  In 2015 world cup India were doing exceptionally well but their middle order was not so tested because the top order were making it up for them.  Suddenly come the semi-final and the bowling starts to faulter and then the top order starts to faulter and middle order did every thing they could but they could not save the game.  India’s 4,5,6 in that game were Suresh Raina, Ajinkya Rahane and M.S. Dhoni.  Raina had a good world cup and Rahane was inconsistent and Dhoni had a decent world cup.  But the middle order had never faced a situation like that during their group stages.  So suddenly 3 wickets down, India started to crumble and end up ugly.

 

Australia Celebrating After Dhoni's Wicket

                                                               But this was not the case in 2019.  In that year India really lost it due to poor team selection.  Got in players like vijay Shankar and Rishabh pant who had not played even 30 matches in One day International cricket.  And India picked Dinesh Karthik who is very inconsistent. All of these players were picked due to their IPL performance.  But IPL has nothing to do with ODI cricket.  You cannot select your squad based on IPL performance, your squad must be based on the player’s previous ODI performances, and there was Ambati Rayudu who was excellent for India before the IPL and didn’t score a lot in the IPL but he was the best player for India at the middle order at that time.  He won the man of the series award in their last series before the world cup against the Kiwis in New Zealand.  But he got dropped due to IPL form and was not even picked as the injury replacement.  The injury replacement was MAYANK AGARWAL.  Are you kidding me!  Mayank Agarwal had not even debuted for India in ODI’s before that world cup, how could you drop a vastly experienced in-form player before a world cup? And as a result India lost the world cup.  This inexperience was mainly the reason for India’s loss in 2019 world cup semi-finals.  

2.LESS CONTRIBUTION FORM THE TOP ORDER WHICH GREW THE PRESSURE ON MIDDLE ORDER

                                                         In the last two world cups India’s top order was fantastic, but only until the Semi-finals.  In 2015 India’s openers put on 73 for the first wicket.  But in a matter of another 7 runs India’s top 3 were back to the dressing room.  This sudden collapse affected the run rate and the Aussies were also not letting runs easily as a result the middle order could only add another 116 runs. While  chasing a target above  300  your  top order must be better than this.  But they managed only 80 runs.  The middle order could not contribute well because they were new to that situation. The Indian middle order never faced a sudden collapse in any of their matches and when you are pushed into a situation like this in a semi-final your middle could never win you the game.

                                                         In the 2019 world cup India’s top order were more deadly the top 3 were the most run scorers for India in that world cup, Rohit sharma:648 runs, Virat kohli:445 runs and K.L.Rahul:361 runs.  So the middle order were rarely tested, also were very in-experienced and inconsistent.  That affected the Semi-finals of the 2019 world cup.  With the top 3 managing only 1 run each India were in a very worse position, and middle order crumbled due to vast inexperience but veteran Dhoni and experienced Jadeja took India from crisis.

Dhoni's Bizarre Run Out In World cup Semifinal 2019

  But India fell short of 19 runs which should’ve been scored by the top order earlier in the innings.

THE FUTURE :

              The World cup in 2023 will be played in our home land and there is a lot of time to prepare for that world cup.  India should rely on their youngsters and let them play at one position for long periods of time, and slowly the youngsters could develop the experience of batting at the middle order in different situations.  Young players like Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh pant, Manish Pandey , Rahul are the key.  So let us hope and try to bring the cup back home in 2023