T20 ICC WORLD TWENTY20 WEST INDIES 2010 - Super Eight: INDIA Vs SL

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World Cup

Twenty20

West Indies

Bounced out, or just plain tired?

Indian Team Pays The Price For Playing On Flat Tracks

St. Lucia: Even as India prayed for a second lease of life, tow bothersome thoughts kept coming back: did the players get blown away in their last two games by an overdose of cricket? Or are they really incapable of being competitive on fast and bouncy tracks?

         By the time you read this, of course, the picture would be clearer: if India do mange to beat Sri Lanka, at least one part of the question would explain itself; but to really understand the team's mindset, you will have to revisit the first two matches it played here.

         After all, they looked so different, so much in command back then: the slow track and friendly bounce, if not the landscape beyond at St Lucia, might have felt like home, and they were right on top of their overt signs of weariness or mental exhaustion even.

          But the moment the action moved to Bridgetown, the story changed; suddenly, the players looked exactly that: tired and jaded.Their, body language exposed the turmoil in their minds too and they suffered two straight numbing defeats.

         Of course, it didn't help that they were up against two formidable pace attacks: Australia and West Indies. The latter didn't have the same firepower, but they knew exactly how to pin the Indian batsmen down.

         In both scenarios, however, let us not forget the mistakes made by the team on the tactical front: in purely defensive moves, it opted for an extra batsman instead of a much-needed third seamer.

         Worse, it chose to bowl on both instances after winning the toss.The thinking may not have been unsound though: "We have the means to chase down any target; let us try and exploit the moisture in the track, instead of exposing our batsmen to it." it would have worked if they had picked up wickets with the new ball. That didn't happen in either game.While batting too, they went for the shots instead of being judicious; a couple of early blows, and they were promptly out of the game.

         "Last year too, India came into the T20 World Cup after a long drawn out IPL," observed former Pakistan captain Rameez Raja."It clearly hyas left them tired this time too," he added.

          Sanjay Manjrekar agreed."More than anything else, they seem completely drained. I've never seen a Tendulkar or a Ganguly or even a Dravid so tense on the field," he said. Rameez pointed to the way Dhoni exulted after the stunning win over Kings XI that kept the Chennai Super Kings in the hunt. "I don't think he has reacted like that ever," he said.

          Both commentators agreed that the intensity in the IPL is too high for comfort. You surely can't charge yourself again in such a short time, they felt.India, just like last time, came here for the World T20 almost immediately after the IPL final.

          Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, too.conceded that the IPL was not the best preparation for an event like this: "Each team is allowed only four foreign players there. Each has only one or at the most two world-class bowlers.

          It's not the same here."Both, Australia and West Indies, unleashed a battery of pacers in Barbados, India, sadly, were on the backfoot even before the chase began: they had yielded too many runs and the asking rate was taunting them.

          They felt the only option was to fight fire with the fire: such a gambit looks good when it works; otherwise, it looks silly.and it raises many questions.