World Test Championship- A Nightmare for Indian Cricket Fans
I made up my mind that this final match never happened in history. I just deleted these 6 days from my memory and I feel a bit relieved.
I firmly believe this current Indian test team has the passion, right set of skills, and caliber to be the WTC champions.
This Indian test team has dominated in the last 4–5 years and stayed at top of the test rankings but unfortunately, history will remember for not crossing the finish line.
And in parallel, the New Zealand team was equally good to be the WTC champions. But overall as a team, I would rate India slightly higher compared to Kiwis, since India has played and won more matches than Kiwis in this championship.
So, where the equation went wrong for India, why did this team again not cross the finishing line? I do not want to hurt myself and Indian cricket fans, mentioning again the recent records of India in semis and finals.
I tried to articulate few points, which can be the reasons for this
- 4–6 key players got injured in the Australia tour and did not get proper test match practice.
- Due to Covid Pandemic, our players could not get enough matches before the WTC final.
- And the biggest reason- The decision to host this WTC in Southampton not in Lords, not in the mid or later English summers. Somehow getting home condition in England favored a lot for Kiwis, I would say this twisted the whole equation in Kiwi’s favor, before the match I predicted it’s 70–30 in Kiwis favor. Conditions play a vital role in Test Cricket, hypothetically thinking, if this match was held in Indian spinning track, India would have finished as winners in 3 days.
- India always struggles to start the series, the best of 3 test matches could have gone in India’s favor, unfortunately, it did not happen.
- Rain was actually helping India to share the trophy, a draw was better than losing a match in just 3 days, a bit of a shameful loss. If India would have got at least 1 proper match before this final, history would have been different.
Kohli could have controlled a few things by getting the best players who are suited to play in English swing conditions. Many people will not agree that Indian batting is not consistent and they usually struggle in swinging conditions, Kholi has every right to ask for the right help, yes I am suggesting great Rahul Dravid. But Kohli and Shastri here messed up by not considering this. Both Rahul Dravid and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are traveling to Srilanka. It’s quite obvious what was most important and works in that direction. Kohli had to be tactical here, on the gut feeling you can decide a team and see such consequences. No way!
I am pretty sure these things Ganguly and MSD would have handled better than Kohli. No doubt Kohli is a super aggressive captain on the field but sometimes you have to be tactical, sometimes matches are lost before it is played. Seam bowlers can not suddenly swing the duke ball in both directions, and you need an experienced mentor to guide your batting lot.
Ravi Shastri, such an inspirational and powerful speaker, needs to do a retrospective on why India is choking in the final stages. Is it the wrong team selection or the mental strength of players or something else?
This needs to be sorted out.