Indian cricket fan has deeply hurt and feeling dejected for India's performance in the ongoing ICC T20 World-Cup. Cricket pundits are busy dissecting the performance of the team and assigning various reasons for the downfall.
It is a known fact that Indian team is on the roads for the last six months and playing cricket under strenuous bio-bubble restrictions and top flight international cricket is demanding in terms of mental and physical fitness for an athlete to perform at his peak level. However great an athlete, we have to understand he is only a human and susceptible to vagaries of life. After the Newzealand match Jusprit Bumra was vocal in expressing his feelings that how an emotional well-being plays a role in players performance.
If we look at the Indian team's cricket calendar right from the Australian tour, followed with truncated IPL in the summer then one off ICC Test Championship then full-fledged Test Series with England and back to UAE to complete the remainder of the truncated IPL and then current ICC Twenty20 competition.
The Indian team's cricket calendar is so crowded that players only get a little breathing space in between. ALL PLAY AND NO REST MAKES JACK A DULL BOY is the state of the current Indian team in the UAE.
On the other hand teams like Pakistan hardly get an opportunity to play top flight international cricket. Owing to the fragile political situation in Pakistan, no country is willing to risk playing in Pakistani soil. It has become a bless in disguise for the country, as is evident in their performance in the ongoing championship.
Pak team is fresh, raring to go and eager to perform. Their performance in the tournament is so commanding that they never allowed an opponent to dominate them so far. Unlike Virat Kohlis and Rohit Sharmas they do not have star dome status and multi-million IPL contracts and all they know is to go out and express freely themselves and are doing it to the perfection in this tournament.
Another serious criticism is of BCCI scheduling IPL 2021 inbetween England tour and ICC Twenty20 World Cup. Since in IPL there is a huge money at stake players are squeezed to the hilt and most of the Indian players who are part of it and are left with little time to rejvunate and feel fresh for the marquee tournament are looking jaded and completely out of sorts.
The team selection for the tournament is another seriously debated point as most of the players in the current playing eleven in the world cup were not in their best of form in the recently concluded IPL.
Especially players like Hardik Pandya who is carrying shoulder injury and Bhuvneshwar Kumar who is a pale shadow of his former self making their way into the playing eleven is seriously questioned by many experts and past players. They allege that most of the players are selected based on their past reputation rather than their current form.
Top performers in the IPL like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Venkatesh Iyer and Yuzuvendra Chahal are left out. For no reason Ravi Ashwin, who is considered as the best spinner in the world, has been constantly kept out and it only makes cricket fan to suspect there is something fishy in the Kohli led dressing room.
To make matter worse, in order to please sponsors, BCCI and ICC made sure that all Indian matches are played in the night 7:30 PM slot to attract huge Indian viewership and garner maximum advertising revenue. Since India has no chance of playing afternoon sessions, if they loose toss they have to cope with due factor in night where they seriously handicapped with gripping the ball and have payed the price for it in both Pakistan and New Zealand matches.
Indian team's fortunes in this world cup are hanging by thread now and only miracle can make them to progress to the semifinals. It is a wake up call to BCCI to prioritise players interest over their commercial interests and do well to understand that Twenty20 requires freshness, athleticism and not to rest on player's reputation rather than consider his current form during the selection process.
BCCI to recall India won the first Twenty20 World Cup with relatively fresh, yong and raring to go with 'horses for courses' selection policy rather than by going with the old and established horses then.
Now the question arises, had it not been for IPL, would team India performed well or IPL Golden Goose killed Indian Team Spirit?
