The favourite jinx

As the T-20 World Cup reaches its penultimate stage – the semi-finals – the hype and euphoria will also be reaching its peak. India will be represented in the semi-finals – not by their illustrious men but by the lesser hyped women’s team. The men’s team, the defending champions of the T-20 World Cup, have been unceremoniously knocked out of the contest in the Super Eight stages. Adding insult to injury is that they won not even a single match in the Super Eight.

As the cricket mad nation conducts a post-mortem of its favoured sporting team, there’s no respite for M.S. Dhoni’s boys as they embark on a difficult Caribbean tour. For the first time in his short and illustrious stint as India captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is on the receiving end. But before holding any one individual responsible, a thoroughbred analysis of the reasons of India’s dismal performance in this World Cup needs to be done.

Historically, Indian cricket’s most consistent enemy has been “consistency”. They’ve played glorious cricket in patches but have failed to sustain their successful streak over a prolonged period. The 1983 World Cup was won by a team none expected to win. In the following World Cup at home in 1987, India choked at the semi-final stage despite being a favourite. It was the same story in the 1996 World Cup. Whenever India’s been expected to win, the team has failed to deliver.

In the first edition of the T-20 World Cup, India wasn’t expected to work wonders. However, surprising even their diehard fans, the Indian team went on to win the World Cup. This time around, with the team having dominated world cricket for a considerable period, the defending champions were hot favourites to win. But Dhoni and Co. failed miserably when it mattered the most. It reminds me of a Glenn McGrath statement during Australia’s hegemony of world cricket: “Reaching the top is easy, but staying there is difficult”.

If we now take a look at the great West Indian team of the 70’s and the Australian side of this decade, the enormity of their achievements can be better understood. Winning when expectations are high elevates any team or individual from good to great. By being knocked out so early, M.S. Dhoni’s men have been shown the harsh reality of life on the cricket field. Many reasons have been cited for India’s dismal performance. Cricketing experts are divided on who should shoulder the blame. Gary Kirsten has cited the IPL as the main villain thereby eliciting the wrath of the BCCI.

The blame games will continue but the fact remains that India looked nothing like a champion team in this tournament. The inability of their openers to handle chin music was brutally exposed. M.S. Dhoni has curbed his natural instincts so much that he seems to be suffering from the “Ghajini Effect” – somebody should remind him that he rose to fame because of his batting first, and because of his captaincy later. Being too dependent on Yousuf Pathan cost the Indians dearly in this tournament. The Virender Sehwag fiasco also dampened team spirits. And in the space of just two weeks, an all-conquering team has suddenly been brought down to earth.

This is introspection time for the Indian team. They need to regroup and work on deficiencies instead of trying to shift the blame. The great thing about Australian cricket is that they always focus on the present. When Shane Warne was shunted out of the 2003 World Cup following charges of drug abuse, they made no fuss and gave no excuses. Instead, they clinically went on playing as though nothing had happened. This is the attitude that separates the champions from the rest.

The Indian team under M.S. Dhoni has been performing really well in the last couple of years. So the expectations of a cricket mad nation were bound to skyrocket. But the X- factor that has been the hallmark of an M.S. Dhoni led team was not visible in this year’s T-20 World Cup. Winning and losing are part of any game – but the way in which this team kept losing was hard to digest. With very little time left before their next cricketing assignment, Dhoni’s boys will be expected to start afresh and leave behind memories of this dismal failure.