It seems churlish to point out that the questioner hadn't asked why India hadn't won the World Cup, though this is the question Chappell chose to answer. He was merely asking why we had been slung out in such short order and given the fact that we had reached the finals just four years ago, it was a reasonable question. Be that as it may, Chappell and his admirers were setting out a preliminary sketch of their history of our decline.

It goes like this. The base of Indian cricket is the first-class game. The Australian school (to which Chappell and Dravid belong) argues that there are too many first class teams. These make the Ranji Trophy unwieldy and the huge difference in the level of cricket played by, say, Mumbai and Jharkhand, makes the first class game uncompetitive. Indian cricket at the very top can only improve when this system is reformed and a premier league created that will feature a maximum of six or seven teams following the Australian model. In addition Indian cricket needs paid selectors unconnected with the politics of zonal cricket, professional managers, and curators who can produce the pitches that India encounters overseas.

Once this reformed structure is in place, the skills of top-tier players have to be professionally honed by putting a process in place. Process became something of a totemic word for Chappell and Dravid. It was generally invoked to defend changes in the batting order and team selection and its purpose was to indicate that the choices made were not random but determined by a process that would, in the fullness of time produce a strong and versatile team. Which brings us to another part of Chappell's press conference.

Q. Another word that has been mentioned a lot is 'process'. What went wrong with the process?
A. That's an inflammatory question and I'm not prepared to answer it.

Even allowing for a natural defensiveness, 'inflammatory' is a curious description of the question. It's a pointed question, even a sarcastic one, given the mantra-like significance of 'process' in the team management's jargon, but inflammatory? Chappell's thin-skinned reaction to the question is probably explained by his feeling that the assembled journalists were trying to get him to take responsibility for the debacle when he clearly thought the responsibility ought to be shared around. Feeling as he did, that the Indian press was trying to assign blame (rather than analyse the causes of failure) Chappell took refuge in the longue durée.

The problem is that structural explanations don't really explain success or failure at the highest level in team sport. Brazil has won the soccer world cup four times. England, with one of the richest and best organized football leagues in the world has won it once. The Dutch, who systematically implemented a 'process' called 'total' football for years never won it at all.

The real difference between the Australian team and the Indian team in structural terms is that the former is thrown up by a population which routinely plays outdoor sport into adult life while the latter is chosen from a population where a statistically insignificant number of people do. The despairing references to a nation of a billion people failing at every sport are beside the point.

So are ambitious plans to restructure first class cricket. I don't think anyone has plausibly demonstrated that the infirmities of the present system have led to the wrong players being systematically chosen for India's Test or ODI teams. There has always been debate about the selection of Indian teams and dark aspersions cast on the corruption of the selection process, but I don't see any Tendulkars or Kapil Devs blushing unseen in some cricketing desert. If anything the number of players to make the Indian team from obscure provincial sides has risen steeply in recent times. Think of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina and it becomes apparent that as far as throwing up talent is concerned, the system's working.

In any case, it's the same system that got us to the final in 2003, so perhaps we should look for explanations in the shorter term and focus on policies and personalities, rather than structure. It's a form of history writing that used to be unfashionable but is making something of a comeback.

I think we lost because Chappell, with the best possible intentions, tried to shake the team out of its settled routines by recruiting new players and rotating their roles. He bet on youth and fitness, on developing the all round skills of players like Dhoni and Pathan, and on undermining notions of seniority and hierarchy. He made an example of Ganguly to this end, made his indifference to slow-moving specialists like Laxman obvious and built up players like Raina on the strength of their fielding skills.

All of these policies are theoretically defensible: the problem is, they didn't work. Raina wasn't ready for prime time as a batsman, Pathan's bowling fell away, the experiments at the top of the order failed and by the time the World Cup came round, the Indian team looked remarkably like the one John Wright had handed over. Ganguly was back and he rejoined a team that had been stirred and shaken so hard that it was an anxious bunch of individuals with no esprit de corps. It didn't help that its captain was so tense and care-worn that his batting form declined.

If the atomization of the team was the medium term cause, the short term trigger was daft team selection. It still isn't clear what Uthappa was doing in the team or what Laxman was doing out of it. Or why the job of bailing India out in the crunch game against Sri Lanka was handed to a rookie instead of being given to Tendulkar who has scored nearly all his one-day centuries opening the batting.

It's in choices like these that the causes of India's embarrassing exit from the World Cup should be sought. A seven team Ranji tournament, the art of total cricket and paid selectors may well be useful in the long run, but it's unwise to base a coaching process on that projection. In the long run we're all dead.

This piece first appeared in the Telegraph.

Hi!

Sorry for digressing from the current theme. I just want to remind the readers about what I had said in the same blog just after the victory over Sri Lanka (before the world cup)at Vizag.

Posted by: ramana on 02/18/2007
Hi!
1. Our fellows crumble in pressure is a well known fact.
2. Bowling and fielding department is not that great. This is a open secret.
3. The top bowlers of top teams have already sorted out Sehwag, Ganguly and even Tendulkar. Dhoni, Uthappa and Karthik cannot be considered solid... they are still immatured... If they click they click... that is all.
4. Only Rahul is a very dependable player... But he also because of his work load as captain is not shining consistently nowadays... and
5. with lot of self doubt, lack of form, intensity, and lethargy (see how Sehwag got out last match)i do not believe Indians to make anywhere even near to semi finals...
Guys! be realistic. stop day dreaming... Best of Luck atleast for 2011.

A mad fellow called Anish wrote back the following lines...

Posted by: Anish on 02/18/2007
Dear Ramana,
Thank you for pointing out the various faults of the average Indian psyche. It gives me immense pleaseure to know brave and intelligent people such as yourself( top performer that you must be) would have a brilliant idea of how 15 gentlemen have found a place for themselves out of one billion. Indian batting lineup has had collapses and so has every other teaem in the world. Lack of self confidence is a personal huma weakness. Perhaps you relate to it. The rest of don't. Not that we have delusions of winning this cup hands down, but we certainly have the talent as well as temperment to match the occasion. We require consistency. None the less, thank you dear Ramana for showing us that you belong to that class of dejected .....who think the know whats going to happen before it does. I'd love for you to post your resume on this. Perhaps it's credibility stretches beyond your tongue. Good Day sir. You may hide in your hole. The rest of us still look forward to a scrap.
Anish

Now where is he? Where is he hiding? fans in india are emotional not intelligent. Very optimistic but not realistic. Let him eat his own words and appologize if he has some self respect.

Thanks for allowing me to write the above piece.

The comparison to the Brazilian, English and Dutch national sides is a bit flawed since national sides in Football do not play as often as they do in cricket.

Most of the Brazilian players don't play in Brazil, they ply their trade in Italy & Spain which have the two best leagues in the world.

The Premiership may have players from all over the world but it should be noted that barring Liverpool,the best players at big clubs aren't English.

The Eredivisie has become a breeding ground for some of the best young talent in The Netherlands but most of these players hardly get to play each other.

What many people (including you) don't recognize is the fact that after vengsarkar took over, chappel's process/policies were no longer in force. Dravid moved away from chappell and sided with seniors.

You exhibit a bit of immaturity in declaring Suresh Raina as a failure. Raina was out-of-form no dounbt, but was a he a failure ? Very hard to say; Raina is too young to be called a failure yet.

How can you blame chapell for WC failure given that we loaded 80% of this team with slow movers; I don't think this was his first choice team.

Who should be really blamed for this ? I think it should be the selectors first for bringing in a new policy of "seniority and reputation comes first and youth matters little". I think we expected unrealistic things of this old team. One day cricket has changed (and it'll change more due to 20-20 influence), and if we continue to stick to the old methods indian cricket will head in the same direction as indian hockey.

Maybe you should look at your piece to see why India failed? A 'catastrophe'? Saying it will be analyzed like a bloody rebellion? Maybe, just -maybe-, if you let the Indian players go out there and enjoy the game without the fear of a loss being turned into a deadly catastrophe that must be disected, your players wouldn't choke so badly when the heat is turned on.

It's a sad and pathetic day when sportsmen have to *fear* the reaction of their fans.

Dear Ramana,

Although I really don't have any reason to respond to your comment based on observation by a certain individual I don't think that you should indulge in setting personal scores with Anish or whosoever . In a way even your comment was a little pessimistic when you mentioned that India was not that strong in most departments of the game. However I beleive that there were a few selection issues if we had played sreesanth instead of Agarkar we would have had a good attack with Sreesanth probably giving us a wicket taking option and also if we had selected powar instead of harbhajan , I am sure we would have won the match against Bangladesh and entered the super eight . The problem is not with the team as a whole but with the seniors who are against any change and want the same set of non performers like harbhajan , agarkar and i will also put tendulkar here. I am sure that this defeat was a boon for Indian cricket because if the team is revamped and some new guy like probably yuvraj although i am not sure about his captaincy and his attitude but we don't have options made the leader, then there is a possibilty we can be better. Drop Tendulkar and ganguly among batsmen. Replace them with Somebody from domestic cricket doing well and test him for some time without insecurity. Drop Harbhajan singh and Agarkar get Powar and sreesanth in . Drop anybody who is not performing and i am sure that we can really perform. Pick some more fast bowlers like VRV singh and Abid Nabi who have some good pace ; blood them for some time on the international scene and see how they go. We canm then have a good fast bowling pool. Also look for another good spinner apart from Powar and drop harbhajan from the one day scenario altogether. Get the confidence of Irfan Pathan back as he is crucial for the balance of the side.I am sure with these changes India can go a long way.

Chappel's response at the press confrence after the SL loss reminded me of that Ganguly-Chappel email episode, but now the roles were reversed. Chappel's SMS and divisionary politics have been all over the media (curiously only after India was ousted)
I still think that India got of to a bad start, another group or even another ground and the story might have been different. In short I am not sharpening any knives, would rather wait and see how the IND-AUS series goes later this year.

Agree with you on Laxman having missed out.
I could visualize the dismissals of Sehwag and Tendulkar.All the bowler had to do was bowl the right length outside the off and sehwag would slash at it and hole out. Tendulkar on the other hand would be done in by one that goes through the gap and he would go down on his knees to create the illusion that he was unlucky that it kept low.
For me this is a measure of how consistent the batsman is. Sure, there is the possibility that on his day Sehwag/Tendulkar can bludgeon any attack into submission but that is the flaw in the thinking. Laxman may not be a gazelle between the wickets but he relishes an attacking field to score boundaries off with some delectable wristy shots.

It is sad to see someone like Mukul invoke the fallacious "X in, Y out would've done the trick" argument. Does he seriously believe that Laxman in and Uthappa out would've made a difference here? C'mon, this is tish-tosh.

Point is Chappell's agenda got derailed with More's exit, Ganguly's re-entry (thanks to Pawar Himself). It is a shame if we fail to note that GC consistently said in the build-up to the WC that "India got the team IT wanted!".

SRT, batting in ANY position, dammit, is expected to read an arm ball from a no-name Bangla bowler! Ditto, he is NOT expected to make Dilhara Fernando look like Waqar Younis on song! Why no mention of this, sir?

Likewise, SG is NOT expected to get bogged down, or play a loose frustrated hoik. Coz what SRT and SG is NOT ACCEPTABLE from senile..er..senior cricketers. Add to this the culpability of Bajji and the wanton run out of Yuvraj and the picture is complete.

The cause of this debacle lies NOT in choices made by the captain or coach. They lie squarely with a bunch of unfit, on the wane players whose retirement is way overdue. But then, we can't really blame the BCCI or the selectors, can we? For, who could really resist the temptation of having a "Superman" or "Phantom" in your team ? :)

I do not see any reason to justify your explanation for failure of indian cricket in WC. If you think Raina is a failure, then look at Sachin who probably scored first century in 70 more ODI. Can any of these new player afford that luxry. It's true that the old player has a role to play. But to revise their role and not to take things for granted is a different case which is rare in Indian cricket. Thanks to the late initiative of Moore and Chapel regime. Stick to the old tradition and fail to adopt and face the near extinction of crickt as it happened to Indian Hokey. Probably, this is a wake up call for BBCI to go for quality than quantity, otherwise I will not wonder if you will have to struggle to find supporters (fan and money)in long run.

Good luck!

Well to me it basically boils down to who can handle pressure? I was just going through the CricInfo website in which the wins were listed for minimum number of runs and minimum number of wickets. And it is not surprisingly to see that India was nowhere to be seen in the winning team cloumn though its name did appear in the losing team column. The fear of losing is just too much in this current Indian team. For a while when Ganguly was at the helm it was gone but it seems to be back in Dravid's tenure may be due to excessive changes constantly made in the Indian team. The key is to play to your potential and don't worry about the results. Look at Australians and South Africans, do they get bogged down if they have lost a wicket, they just continue on as if nothing has happened. The difference can even be seen in the Bangladesh and India match. Had there been a different partner to Yuvaraj there would have been more singles and twos and the pressure could have been enforced on the opposition. Yes we need youth, and if Chappel wanted to enforce that he wasn't wrong in doing that. Everyone says Tendulkar is a great player, no doubt about that as you won't be scoring so many runs if you are not a great player, but it will be really interesting to see the stats which will show us how many times Tendulkar has actually contributed in a winning team or how many times he has actually taken the team from nowhere to a win A LA Steve Waugh. These guys should go now and should be replaced by young potential match winners. Chappel and Dravid should be there and if paid selectors, elite team in the domestic games, and better pitches work in Australia than we should just follow it rather than questioning the proven ideas.

Mukul makes a great case for not looking at systemic and cultural excuses but looking at the heres-and-the-now. Fair enough! But, the reason so many people are asking for far-reaching structural reforms is because we need them! And knowing the Indian psyche and bureaucratic political tortoise that the BCCI is, there may be very few moments when such change can be demanded vociferously.

We need a Premier League (maybe 7-8 super teams comprised from the provincial sides), we need professional sports administrators and trainers, we need a cultural change where brilliance is only an occasional passport to the team while effort and temperament get valued more. But, radical action can only be triggered by tragedy, and we have a way of missing the boat. Lets not do it now.

If you look at the team we had this year, aside from the curiosity called uthappa, we had one of the finest, most experienced batting line ups. Our team severly lacked hunger and fire this time - that's all. the root cause to me was the dravid-chappell combination. For all his ideas, chappell didn't achieve the intended results. He must go. We need to retain our captain, but Dravid needs to toughen up and put the fear of god in his men. He is too placid - and needs more iron and fire.

Mr.Kesavan's " more of same" solution has the merit of at least being clear.But one wonders then why does he wish to waste hid undoubted writing skills on the same rusults and ,presumably,same solutions to the conundrum of the gap between potential and performance.True,we are all dead in the long run: but why is that any different from being comatose on a recurring basis? And please remember, long after his death, Keynes and his ideas are alive and well.

Mukul:
India's shambolic performance and the context couldn't have been more aptly put. It's pleasing that Chappel's ultra professional approach/methods/processes are countered with erudition and a relavant philosophical contruct that applies to India/Indian sport.

It's a vindication of sorts for leaving a player like VVS....it might sound sadistic but very true.

It somehow proves that great players cannot be great coaches despite the very best intentions....the facilitator should never be the enforcer. The whole process of melding all the contituents into 'one' vision of just one individual has fundamental flaws. Mr. Chappel was indeed a great batsmen and very articulate and firm coach but a winning coach......nahhhh. India needs a performing/fighting/winning team without getting too muddled into processes and theories. We need at least one Kapildev for any sorta real resurgence.

Come on Mukul - Please tell me you would keep this structure if you were in charge? It seems we have a plethora of batsmen at the Ranji level who have batting averages of 50+ but have not been able to replicate their feats at the international level (Names like Vikram Rathour come to mind). But look at the two newest batsmen that Australia have brought in - Hodge (a double century to his name against SAF) and Hussey. Same would go for bowling (Clark). I sometimes envy that they have a very stable test team with 1/2 changes every year, and the changes they bring in produce tremendous results...Is this not a product of their system?

I would agree with ramana above. We cricket crazy fans think emotionally than being rationale and being realistic.

People were angry with the Indian loss, and many were burning effigies without realizing the fact that these are the same people who made the Indian Team members as heroes. Everybody will agree that this team lacked conviction, temperament, and more importantly the commitment, and attitude to win a match which better teams possess. The bonding was clearly seen missing. Somehow, i always felt tht this current indian team under Dravid was a bunch of 11 players than a Team, and that showed up in none other than the biggest cricketing extravaganza.
And after the Indian debacle in this world cup i realized one thing.
Unless, the system is changed,
unless players are paid based on performance, unless players are restricted from endorsements in the first 3-4 years of their gaining entry to Indian team untill they fully establish themselves, (This would mean the players will be well established for every world cup and we will have lot may players to choose)
unless we have a system where there is relative pay to the players based on the number of matches won by India and within that counting the performance of the player (say if india wins all matches in a year and a player A contibutes consistently well in all these matches while if India loses however well he may have performed, his quota should be less)
Unless cricket board removes the current grading system, and brings in a sole performance based pay as said above,

India will be found wanting to Win the World Cup and evry World Cup will throw some disappointment or the other for the cricket crazy fans of the country.

Burning effigies and being angry is neither practical nor a rationale thinking, because as said better late than never, this World Cup has thrown Team India into a reality check as to what they were capable of.

Unless the mindset changes, there will be lot more disappointments for the fans.

With that I sign off, and hopefully when the World Cup returns to the sub continent next time, things would have changed within the Indian Crikcet System and hopefully BCCI is taking steps in the right direction.

I think Chappell's 'process' was subverted when the adequate no. of wins did not turn up within the desired period of time. Everyone knows that no 'process' is foolproof and if it involves young men with large egos, yes it will have its failures. What was needed was to rework it, but keep the essentials the same: concentrate on fitness, youth and aggression. The aggression disappeared with the first series loss. The youth with the second. The fitness naturally followed. Never mind that in getting five-six feel good wins we have now completely lost direction in our One Day cricket.

What is needed is not an overhaul of Ranji trophy. A little more streamlining with more divisions and less of Mumbai v. Jharkhand will be better, but the system does work, and in a country like India, you cannot restrict first class cricket to about 6-7 teams, whatever the benefits of the same are to Australia or South Africa.

The plan must be for World Cup 2011. Never mind series losses in the middle. Never mind humiliating defeats now. We need a pool of 15 players, experienced, but not too old, hungry, fit and skilful to challenge the very best in the World.

Of the present lot, only five will qualify: Yuvraj, Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik, Uthappa and Sreesanth. The others will be too old or just too jaded. We therefore need to find two quality spinners, three quality fast bowlers, plus an all rounder (Pathan maybe), another opener and three solid middle order batsmen. Players must be given a good run before assessing whether they are good enough to make it at the international level. The goal must be for the next four years. The process must be put in place now.

It is no use blaming the team when they start off on the wrong foot in the first place. Maybe they took Bangladesh for granted. They are the only team not to have played tests in India because of lack of commercial appeal. It certainly was the starting point (remember we have always beaten Pakistan in every World Cup to date) as we get familiar with their players and system by playing them more often (not that it helps against stronger teams, but you have to start somewhere). In any case, the opening match would have made a better case if the singles had been converted to twos or threes (I find it absolutely appalling that the Indian batsmen walked their singles most of the time.) And talking about the Bangladesh fielding, remember all those sliding saves for boundaries (hmmm....some dreams do never happen! in India..)

With this kind of attitude, it is no surprise that we couldnt cut it against the better teams.

Instead of trying to pinpoint or apportion blame, the Board must relook at the entire "process", "structure" and team selection and stick with it irrespective of other considerations. Then four years may be sufficient time to entertain ideas of another tilt at the crown.

Great cricketers don't necessarily make great coaches. Look at Greg Chappel's record with South Australia before taking the coaching role with India. The coach has to be a people person, more like a psychologist, understanding the dynamics of the team etc etc.

The Indian players past & present, barring a few, cannot play on a pitch that has bounce & movement.

Everyone in India wants to be a Tendulkar, NOT Kapil Dev, NOT the great spinners of the 70's. I'm guessing this is partly because of the money & partly because of the glamour in India.

Someone said India reached the final of 2003 WC. Yes they did, but did you also see the way they got flogged by the Aussies?

My belief is that "YOU ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR BOWLING ATTACK".

A few responses:
1. Regularly people mention about the passionate fan. Burning effigies, blackening houses, breaking windows, et.al. Even Mukul mentioned the same in one of the previous posts. Till date I have not seen any fan doing any of those things. I have seen people feel privately happy or sad, share sms messages, crack jokes but not do any of the above. Dhoni's house was damaged by JMM activists and not fans. Fans as a word is being used a bit too loosely.

It is also not wrong to expect after all we pay for the billions that they earn. If the stars are not used by, say, Pepsi the cost of a packet of Lays would come down by a few paise at least, if not rupees. So we are all paying for their riches and happily at that.

2. I am not sure if a player here or there would have made such a huge difference. If the other 10 are useless the 11th would make no difference. True, India has the maximum individual records on paper (highest runs, centuries, blah, blah...) but it is all history. What percent of these great scores came in the last 2 years. Other than Dravid the greats have been generally in decline. If we have to play on historical records, might as well take Kapil and Sunil G with us.

3. Greg is wrong in saying we haven't won anything. Champions Trophy 1 and 2 come to mind. However, it is less about winning and more about reaching the final or late stages. We have done that regularly.

The cricket establishment is a palace of intrigues. Everyone is a victim and everyone is a suspect. Can't trust anyone.

First, this is not a catastrophe. Woolmer's murder is the real tragedy, not India's ouster. Second, let's not blame Chappell blindly, the BCCI hired him for the job, chose him over Amarnath, Moody and Haynes. Third, the real culprits - the BCCI - will take no blame, no responsibility and overhaul nothing. India, with all those mountains of money in cricket, needs a Kerry Packe-like figure. Set up a
professional league (like the PHL in hockey), get players organized into clubs (enough of the archaic Ranji-Duleep format), use performance
linked incentives, improve player quality. Send the BCCI out of business. The examples (Aus, South Africa) are all out there.

It is really good to see that so many people are wriring into this forum, whatever views they have, instead of blatantly protesting on the streets. I am really appreciative of the healthy debate.
On a more specific note, why is so much of your collective energy and passion directed upon a sport( the oxford dictionary describes it as a game played as pastime). I might be blamed for not being in touch with the ground realities, to not understand the psyche and emotions of my countrymen, but what is it that hurts? Defeat, manner of defeat or the defeat inspite of the money earned! I find it a real apathy that a sunbathing sport of Englishmen,(I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to cricket) has been brought(reduced, shall we say) to such ignomity, by the collective passions and an impending ignorance of the games glorious history.
I believe that, we will do well understand that, a sport as it passes through ages, there is bound to be temporal variations in every aspect of the game. Cricket is increasingly turning the way of fitness, energy, mental strength etc. Gone are the times when a bowler had the corage to appreciate a good stroke, or a batsmen acknowledge a great delivery. One look at the SA vs Aus match would have revealed to us how much we lag behind in terms of the physical demands of the game. We are still in the era of touch artists but sadly cricket has no more remained to be an intimate contest between bat and the ball.

To look for reasons of defeat, is healthy, but defeats were to a team that played better than us on that given day. Why can't we appreciate it? They could have of course played worse than us and lost the game, but they didn't. Isn't it?

All I wish to say is that, sport must be given its due place, it definitely must be appreciated but not with a passion which might prove to e harmful.

As a last note, if only my countrymen had the good sense to question each one of their elected representatives( who are legally bound to answer, while the cricketers are not even legally bound), lets start from our area corporators, MLA's, millions of politicians, houses of whom in front not a single dharna is staged for the right reasons, than my country would have been a far more better place to live in.

WHY DO NOT WE QUESTION THOSE, WHO RIGHTFULLY SHOULD BE?

Hi Guys, Given below are the contents of what I posted in this space when Indian tean was selected:

Hope it works for India.But look at the following selection blunders:
a) u have one spinner in kumble/bhajji as back up-OK
b) u have one seamer sreesanth as back up-OKc) how can you have Karthick and Pathan as back ups? It may be a gamble to start with Sehwag as he is taken on repuation.Sehwag coupled with Ganguly n Uthappa against top 8 teams is not the ideal combination and it is more like a lottery hoping for the best.They may score 3 boundaries but to be 30 for3 in 5 overs does not augur well for India.The best match for them could be Bemuda. Dravid,Scahin,Dhoni, Yuvraj combo is fine but top 3 to me is a worry!It may be OK to start with them.The backup Plan B should have been to have two capable batsmen in the reserves.Lamxan for Pathan and Kaif for Karthick would have been the best selection and would have ensured good cushion.we would have definitely reached semis and with little luck and team spirit could have gone all the way.The current set up does not inspire confidence of making it to semis.This ofcourse if they reach second stage coz vs sl it is 50-50 game.Murali and Vass are back.If we relax and B'desh shocks us then we are OUT!!!

Hope it made sense now!

Cheers

It is high time for Ganguly, Sachin, Kumble to retire and Sehwag,Dhoni,Agarkar and Harbhajan dropped.

Karthik can keep wickets.

Bring in youngsters and give the captaincy to Laxman. Kaif can be Vice captain
Laxman and Dravid will be the seniors.
Yuvraj and Kaif the young but experienced batsmen and good fielders.

Let the team be filled with new players like Uthappa,Piyush, Sreesanth , RP singh any Iam sure there are many more names.......

Uthappa, Gambhir, Laxman, Yuvraj, Dravid, Kaif, Karthik, Piyush, Sreesanth, RP, munaf Patel,zaheer. This looks a more balanced and helathy team which can win many matches.
More importantly I expect better team spirit in this unit!

Here is the best solution to the woes of Indian cricketers' and their fans.
Invite Bermuda/Kenya or Zimbabwe (don't make the mistake of calling Bangladsh or any other team, it may backfire) for a best of 7 match one day series in India.
It will have the following benefits:

a) Ganguly will get an opportunity to score a century after 4 years that too at run a ball (the last 2 were against Kenya in WC).
b) Sehawga can fulfill his ambition to score a double
c) Dhoni can score a 20 ball hundred
d) Bhajji can get a 5 for
e) Tendulkar can add a few more to his 10000+ runs.
Infact the aggregrate runs, averages, strike rates etc.. will get a real boost.

After a thumpping 6-1 win ,(when India loses that one match, dejected fans would skip thier meals, ofcourse not the players) sponsors will gift apartments worth 1crore+ each to the team members.All the players would divulge which soft drink is the secret of their energy.
All channels would interview the players to find out how much milk they drink, which shoes they wear, which mobile they use etc............
Indian fans will joice and be happy with the win.
The media will calim that we are the no.1 team in the world and that ours is the best batting line up in the world ON PAPER!

God forbid if they lose the seires you have a few scapegoat players like Laxman, Agarkar, Kumble!
Three chreers to the Indian team and JAI HIND!!!

Have to completely agree with Ravi from Oz - Batting wins Fans, Bowling wins Championships....

No Doubt. India has the Talent and a very strong batting line-up. Where we lacked was Fielding and body language. Dravid and Chappel clearly underestimated Bangladesh and chose to bat first hoping to get some batting practice for the out of form Sehwag and others. But Bangladesh kept it very tight by bowling and superb fielding. Indian batsmen didn't try to rotate the strike and ended up with a paltry score.

In the match against Srilanka, Despite geting their top three batsmen, we let them off the hook and self destructed ourselves by batting carelessly

Disappointing piece- Mukul. It seems the media dislike for Chappel has spilled over in your column. Yes he could have dealt with the press conference better but to point all the fingers at him just because he doesn't much care for the media is narrow minded viciousness.

The media has itself been very immature and selfish in it's coverage of cricket and am afraid not altogether honest either. Thus instead of impartially analysing the defeat and embarrasment it has as usual taken it's own axe to grind. So how is it any different from Chappel, BCCI or the players when it is also behaving in the same selfish and immature manner?

I have yet to read a proper balanced piece from the "informed" journalists/meida on what should and shouldn't be done on Indian Cricket and beleive me there is lot's to analyse and effect, instead we have to read your immature comparisons with Australia etc. which are neither constructive nor am afraid have much substance. It clearly reflects your lack of thought and application to the game and overzealousness and unfairly targetting Chappel and his protege's like Raina.

So the " Fourth Estate" is no better than the other Three!!

What is very encouraging to see is that most of the public (the informed and educated ones) and a hanful of writers/ journalists haven't bought into your biased and one dimensional point of view and instead have actually suggested some very apt, honest and constructive ideas/points.This, not only in reply to your blog but in other articles/ pieces as well.

Please desist from such immature articles it doesn't befit Cricinfo' class in general and may I say your's in particular- otherwise you will be no different from the common journalists who don't seem to know and worryingly, care for the game but are more interesterd in pursuing their own narrow and selfish agenda! And if such articles are repeated I would request Cricinfo not to publish them as it will reflect poorly on them.

Regards,

Nirbhay Singh

Hi Mukul,

I dont understand what you really want. In the last article you described the exit of India and Pakistan from World Cup as good for the game and now your back crying over spilt milk. If India's exit is good in your opinion then why have you written an article evulating causes of India's early ouster. I mean after that last article you should have stop writing about Indian cricket totally. Doesnot make sense to me.

For Ravi from OZ : while your point that India needs strong bowling attack makes sense but your belief YOU ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR BOWLING ATTACK is totally stupid.

To be a great team you need to have strong batting as well bowling line up. West Indies team of 80's ,SA team of 90's and present day Australian side is pretty much strong in both areas.Pakistan always have had strong bolwing attacks ever since I remember but still their win percantage is only 55%. That isnt great wither. They were a great team in late 80s and for sometime in 90s simply because they were strong in both departments batting or bowling. Balance is the key.

Regards.
Ruchit.

I am an aussie - so my views are obviously tinted. However, from my point of view Greg's "process" is the right one. One day matches - world cups in particular - are won on a combination of all skills. All the potential winners have that - led by Australia, South Africa a close second, with Sri Lanka, West Indies and New Zealand chasing.
India may field a potentially wonderful batting lineup, but its bowling is ordinary and fielding possibly the poorest on show. Both Dravid and Greg are on record some effort must be made to "compensate" for the poor fielding.
So India start below all other contenders from the start. Added to that, while Australia or South africa can have an off-day with the bat, they are confident some magic with the ball or in the field still gives them a chance. India can't. Poor batting means that match is automatically lost.
So, what is needed?
A good first class structure is important not only to spot potential stars. It is important to bring them up the right way, to be athletes and cricketers. Jaques, a superb batsman, misses out on selection because his fielding is considered not up to scratch. Cosgrove - another talent - is considered a bit overweight. They are both at home honing their skills and not even in the 15. Some exceptions exist - like Lehmann - but they are remembered BECAUSE they are different.
So, why has Sehwag not been sent back until he is a bit faster between the stumps? Where are the openers who have played at least 100 real first class matches before getting the nod and making it to the real world? Why are 18 year old bowlers selected to open the bowling, while 35 year old champion veterans look on?
This is the "process" that needs to be in place.
Once the system churns out 40-50 top first class talents all the time, the selectors can really do their job and select the best 20-25. The coach then hones the edge and combines the players together, and the captain leads them into the field and calls the tactical shots.
Currently, India fields some fine individual players, mixed with some very ordinary others to complete the makeup. If anything, India's previous world cup success (and lets not forget what happened in the really important match - the final) is more a testament to the ability of those few individuals, then to the team as a whole.
In tests - those few can win you matches and series. In ODIs, you need to rely on everyone to shine on a particular day.

There is one more point I want to raise. Merely copying the tactics used by Australia is not going to help. The reason why Australia has been the world's best side now for several years is because they had led from front when it comes to innovative ideas. The Cricket Academy set up in 80's, the concept of scoring faster in test matches, emphasis on high quality fielding and running between wickets etc. are just examples. I mean Bob Simpson and Dean Jones changed how one day cricket was to be played by emphasizing on taking lot of singles and doubles.

Sri Lanka when the really mastered the concept of hitting all over the place in 1996 World Cup went on the win the cup. I mean it was an innovation from their side and it paid wonderfully well.
We might say Greatbatch and Sachin started doing it before Jayasuriya and Kalu but the fact is that hitting out in first 15 overs was made an integral part of ODIs by Lankans. Pakistani developed reverse swing and Saqlain introduced doosra.

I mean when we look from this aspect Indian contribution is not really that much in terms of innovation. Why just follow others whether it is sports, economics, infrastructure development,science and technology whatever. I dont remember of too many gifts given to mankind by modern day India other than a huge jumbo population of 1 billion. Not talking about Indians working abroad coz they have access to better facilities but strictly about Indians in India at any given point of time. I mean we need create ideas and products not just use existng ones.

Till 70s Asian teams reigned supreme in hockey then Europeans got astro-turf- a change I might say a kind of innovation and see where they are today and where Asian teams are.

Better than aping other countries cultures it is high time we start developing our own concepts. What worked in Australia may not work in India.

Regards.
Ruchit.

I totally agree with Mukul that there are just too many teams at the domestic level. As far as the future of Indian team is concerned Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell should be retained and Tendulkar and Ganguly dropped. Sachin has not been performing outside the subcontinent for quite some time now. May be he is putting too much pressure on himself. Sourav has not scored a century in ODIs' for 4 yrs and always scores at less than a run-a-ball rate. The only time I have not seen him do so is when he scored 183 against SL in the 1999 WC.

Your piece makes sense to me. While the failure of the Indian team to get to the Super Eights could be attributed to bad luck, Mortaza, failure of the batting line-up etc etc, there are some home truths about ourselves that you hint at, which bear repetition:

1) We do not have a mania for fitness, sports and the outdoor life. There are good reasons for this - the sheer economic pressure on all of us to get an education and work hard, overcrowded cities, climatic conditions, etc. By the time most of us are in our 30s, we are paunchy and unfit. I am not knocking us - but great sportsmen are produced by large numbers of young people indulging in sport and discovering what they are good at, and excelling in it into adult life. Cricket lends itself to our current national way of life because it is primarily a sport of hand-eye co-ordination. Our lack of a fitness culture is also why we do not do well in football, now field hockey, volleyball, basketball, etc.

2)Assuming cricket is our only national sporting vehicle, an overhaul of the system that produces a 100 India Possibles is necessary. Here I agree with the Chappell/Dravid mantra. I would go further to say that privately funded clubs are the way to go.

3) For private funding to get into first-class cricket and convert Bombay into Bombay United, we need our people to be interested in cricket and not in the stars, so that they can pay to go watch games or subscribe on television. Attendances at most first-class games in India is appalling.

4) Assuming we have a system, and we do not win a World Cup ever, I would still prefer us to be known as the Dutch of cricket akin to the place the Dutch have in football. No one takes the Dutch lightly, and the athletic, energetic football that the Dutch play is beautiful to watch. Even if we lose, I would like us to lose gloriously.

Thanks

Mukul, I know the fate of your book it will be bigger flop than the indian team. YOu obviously have no understanding of cricket or football like someone already pointed out about your anology. Sad thing is Bcci thinks exactly like you thats why indias record for past 15 years is what it is.
Dont forget when chappell implemented his ideas india had a long winning streak and breifly were ranked no 2 in the world. They did it with agressive batting, and great feilding. If you remember In sereis against srilanka in 2006, lankans said they lost becuz they couldnt match indias fielding. India didnt follow thru with chappels vision. Chappel shouldnt be blamed for anything. he didnt get what he wanted. vengsarkar and tendulkar and all the senior bozos in the team overruled his ideas and should be the ones to blame for this world cup fiasco

Chappell refered to history but only he got it wrong. India won at Sharjah&Dhaka in 1988,inEngland in 1990,SriLanka in 1994,Sharjah in 1995,Dhaka,Sharjah (twice)& Lanka in 1998,West Indies and England in 2002 and joint winners in Champions Trophy in 2002.India had made it to the finals of the Champions Trophy in 2000 and the finals of the World Cup in 2003. India had also made it to the semis in the World Cups of 1987 & 1996 &the Champions Trophy of 1998,the Nehru Cup of 1989the super six of World Cup 1999, apart from numerous successes against top notch teams like South Africa and Australia at home and in neutral venues. Clearly , India has performed reasonably and at times spectacularly but rarely absymally.
In the Chappell ear, India played tournaments in Sri Lanka,Zimbawe, Malaysia, Champions Trophy at home and in the Carribean and lost every where.India plummetted from bad to worse to absymal during the Chappell era.In a triangular at Kaula Lumpur india failed to make the final, in the Champions Trophy , India failed to make it to the semis (first instance at home) and failed to make it to the last eight (worst ever)in the World Cup.In between, India had been thrashed 4-1 by the Windies,and blanked 4-0 by the Proteas.Indias record outside the subcontinent reads a dismal 3-15 (a historic low). In the three victories, New Zealand and the Windies had rested their key players in inconsequential matches and the lone live victory came in the last over . Indeed, India could not play the 50 overs in 15 of the 18 matches.
At home Indias successes came against teams like England, Srilanka & Windies ,arguably, not the feared teams and arated below it and whom India have invariably beaten at home. It lost to Australia and drew against the Proteas (Indias worst performance). The win over Pakistan in Pakistan was the only silver lining and this too had been done in 2004 before the present regime took over.

Indias performance during the entire tenure of Chappell declined marginally at home and alarmingly abroad.
Chappell, read history again & learn some grace.

I dont know if any one is going to read this comment or not. But here are my views on Team India's failure and some suggestions

1) Selection issues
a) Should have Romesh powar instead of Kumble as Kumble has been a non-perfomer against teams in the recent few years in ODI's which was the prime reason for Harbhajan to be the number one choice in the team. However, even H.Singh has not been able to create much of an impact on opposition teams. Powar atleast would buy his wickets by encouraging the batsmen to have a go at him, where he would have subtle variations in length and pace & turn.

b) If Team India had any vision of going through to the semifinal or final stage of the world cup then, they should have had Pathan given a run at the intial stages of the worldcup to get his confidence back so that he could have added that crutial bit of balance to the team thats been missing over past few months.

c) Should have dropped Sehwag right after Bangladesh match seeing the same old manner in which he gets out { Delivery jagging in to the stumps or giving catching practice to slips and gully}

d) Should have had Sreesanth playing against Srilanka after 2 unimpressive performances by Agarkar.

e)Given a clear message to Ganguly not to waste time out in the middle. He was trying to hit a big shot after wasting 10 to 12 deliveries. Can't really understand after all these years of playing cricket..if u r feeling the heat all u have to do is just turn over the strike or go for it. Whats the point if u can't take singles or even hit out against spin when he already knows he cannot handle pace.

f)Time has come for our cricket god Sachin to dethrone himself before some one says u are not going to be in the starting eleven. By god, he has been making comebacks every year right after year 2001 when india toured srilanka. I cannot understand this player for all that he has been.
A young bowler ( Chawla/Sreesanth) gets rid of him in the Challenger series and he tries to go after him in the next match and succeeds against them and shows he is a hero..When it comes to international level...he becomes a bunny to bowlers of every kind and he seems to have lost the self belief of playing big innings against bigger teams. He has turned from being the only genius in the team to the biggest choker in a team of chokers who seem to indefintely choke when they see this choker choke.

One Important point to be noted on all these points above is that these people have been playing for so long that they are atleast expected to make sure india win about 6-8 matches out of 10. i.e about 70-80 per 100 on an average. and all these very well equipped players have been doing only 45-50% or even worse over past 12-15 months. Thats the reason we need to gather some new pool of talent and Stay with the new talent and mark my words "Stay with the new talent" for a good period of time even if Team India is going to Struggle intially for about a year or two.

-----------------------------

2)Suggestions
Drop Sehwag[needs to sort out his weakness]
Saurav, Kumble,Agarkar[Vision 2011..they don't fit in]
Sachin[Can't hang on to him even after all that genius he has been.
Harbhajan --> when as the last time he even had a 3 wicket haul to help win a match..i can't remember.. do u?

Get some new players[Piyush Chawla, VRV singh, A Rayudu to name a few. There can be many more players waiting ] and give them a decent run.

Also test the likes of Pathan, Uthappa,Venugopal Rao, Suresh Raina,Dinesh Karthick, Sreesanth, RP singh, Powar for a few more months.

The above players along with dravid, yuvraj, zaheer, dhoni hope that they click.

Otherwise cricket's fate is going to be the one similar to that of hockey's -- Dead.

--------------------------------------

Dear Rahul, (not Mukul)
It is not worth it. To captain a team with members who continuously undermine your authority, supported by a bunch of jokers (sorry selectors) who dont give you the team you want, harrased by a gaggle of columnists (many having seen the ball from 200m away) who will find fault with whatever you do and attacked at by group of fans who are willing to break up anything when the team loses - It definitely is not worth it.
For a person who has given all (Wicket keeping, Offspin, No1 to No 7) to the cause of your Captains, it is a pity that no one showed the inclination to grind it out that you have demonstrated over the years. Its also a pity that you were expected to do all these again by yourself, just to satisfy the above bunch, gaggle, pack, group etc...
Resign, play your game, and let others stew, in a mess of their own creation...
Your greatness cannot be undermined by this loss, whatever the pack/gaggle/bunch/group says or does...
You were always and will be a Stranger in a Strange Land...

Deepak

Mukul, all of us indians have been full of comments borne out of frsutration & anger from the time indian took the field for their first match in the WC. A few changes in personnel (i personally think Laxman & Powar should've been in instead of Ganguly & Harbhajan) wouldnt have done anything for the team as they clearly lacked the commitment & desire. They looked like going through the motions and the oomph just wasnt there - one has to only see murali & jayasurya & their enthusiasm. All our players had the glum hangdog expression on the field and they werent enjoying what they were doing - the point is, why did they go there in that case? The seniors were aloof and the juniors just went through their routines. How can someone like agarkar be in the team after playing that atrocious shot against SL? Couldnt he just stay there as Dravid was there at the other end? What was dhoni thinking when he played that millionaire shot against murali, which was the first ball he was facing. Ganguly had no business to be in the team and what was he doing with so many dot balls and that appalling strike rate against bangladesh. He increased the pressure on the others and it was clear that yuvraj was clearly frustrated at not getting the strike & singles not taken. Yuvraj himself has questionable attitude - he might think himself to be a star but he hasnt quite reached there yet. What went wrong with our seniors need to be analysed from the south african series onwards - St & RD played like novices with their strokeless display on the last day of the 3rd test making a debutant like harris a super bowler - what are these guys thinking? win or save matches by playing negatively? Where is their pride & joy of representing india? This indian team clearly looks divided by internal strife - ST wasnt the vice captain that RD was when Ganguly was the captain. Were they all revolting against Chappell? or maybe chappell & dravid? Why werent they even practicing & when they did it was low intensity? Many many questions & no answers - we the cricket lovers are scratching our heads while the palyers themselves might be signing for another commercial. Our players lacked commitment & Chappell was light years ahead for this team. If a man that was one of the main characters in getting aussie team to where they are now is nto listened to, they need to rethink if they want to represent india.
Regretfully, VJ

experiment 1:forget chappell's comments.yuvraj must be the captain.his aggressiveness and cocky gait make him ganguly 2.his cool run scoring makes him dravid 2.
experiment 2:sachin must be dropped.he may be a god.let us be atheists for sometime atleast.
experiment 3:harbhajan must not be picked for overseas matches.
experiment 4:let all of us indians forget cricket till 2011.enjoy v anand being no 1 in chess.enjoy jeev milkha singh,sania mirza and others.

I think the senior players are very much to blame for what can only be called a debacle. They are thoroughly pampered and totally over lionised by the indian public. Look at the arrogant way Ganguly batted - he scarcely wanted to run opting instead for the glory shots. Sehwag showed in his lazy run out in India and his poor stroke selection vs Bangaldesh that he is nothing but a one dimensional player. I have huge respect for Sachin but he is well past it and Dravid for me is the only grafter with the talent and energy to contribute (though he should stand down as captain and give Yuvraj a shot).

I was in India watching the cricket upto the Sri Lanka match and I have to say that it was incredibly annoying that even in between balls there were adverts. The commercialization of this sport and the transformation of sportman into brand merchants shows where priorities lie.

I am totally disgusted with indian cricket and the whole scene surrounding it.

Come on Mukul you always want to say that we indians have wrong perception than the foreigners. I totally disagree with you. We all know we have some reasons why we are often not winning abroad since 1985. It is a coach's job to find out the reason and make the right.

Putting the right thing in a right place isn't a coach Job? But what did chappel do? He didn't do anything. He wants india to be in below par always so that India will never think of beating his own country (Aussie). So far in any country coach never had such a previlage to be part of selection panel and have is own pick without any dispute (Ofcourse kiran more is good noddy fellow for him where vengaskar is not; Kiran more shakes his head and silently picks those people whom greg was wanted.)

He is a person who demoralized the indian cricket along with kiran more. He said we will experiment and pick up right (persons)combination for the world cup. I think he experimented in WC too. By keeping the key bowler Irfan Pathan and Kumble(is a very much key bowlwer in WI pitch)idle in important match.

I agree we cannot blame him alone for the loss. But the Captain also. Dravid made a wrong decision by picking up Sehwag while there is already 3 combination availble for opening slot.(Sachi, Ganguly and Utthapa). If you see the other teams combination they have a recognised batsman until no:7 (Aus - Mike Hussey; S.africa - Kemp; W.indies - Dwayne Smith; Srilanka - Arnold ; etc..).

I dont know what they thought of this WC; I think they did not realize that this World Cup we are expecting for and still experimenting in the WC.[:)]

Talking of senior batsmens except ganguly no one is played. Sachin always never performed under pressure. He can silent all critics regarding his batting except this one. Now, he will score 2 consecutive centuries and will silent the crictics on him; But, still he can't make silent of critic that he will not perform when team is needed (or) under pressure.

There is lot more to tell this a just a part of occean cry.

Team India's loss is mainly attributed to political process involved in selection and the power/influence of the "star players" themselves.This process is evident in the film world as well where ageing stars still get major roles in movies especially in the South....donkey years and we still hear of Chireenjevi, Nagarjuna, Mohan Lal, Mammooty etc.
Even in securing roles in the civil service, its about power & influence and not merely on merit. Not suprisingly,this process flows into cricket as well.
With a load of earnings from Sponsors, money controls everything now days in Indian cricket! These star players though ageing and wilting away still seek fame by being in the team and are powerful enough to urge selectors to keep them in the team. The selectors themselves are personal friends of these start cricketers. Then there is the issue of close friendship among players and the star players where one supports the other irrespective of performance. End of the day, we land up with a team of selfish players not giving up their places to others with more talents and greater cricketing skills. The word "passion" for the game is missing as age catches up.
If the playing 11 included Kaif, Raina, Rayudu, Sreeshanth, Powar, Karthik in replacement for Tendulkar, Sehwag, Bhaji, Kumble,Ganguly,Agarkar...then we would still be riding on the world cup.
Indian needs a change in process where performance, youth, talents & passion are looked upon rather than historical averages and star sponsored players! Can't blame the coach...
Perhaps my dream team after world cup:
1.Dinesh Karthik
2.Rahul Dravid
3.Mohd Kaif
4.Yuvraj Singh
5.Ramesh Power
6. S Sreeshanth
7. Suresh Raina
8. Rayudu
9. Irfan Pathan
10. Munaf Patel
11. Robin Uthappa

Brilliant piece by Mukul. I am amazed that most of the comments w.r.t his post are critical of his views, seems like the "process-worshippers" in the media have succeeded in brainwashing much of the public(the cricinfo-reading one atleast) about how "the process" is the best thing to happen/waiting to happen in Indian cricket.....why doesnt anyone answer his question- how did the team in 2003 reach the final without a process, whereas this team dint even reach the super-eights?

Another point, there is no way on earth that Chappell,in his capacity as coach things such as improving domestic cricket etc, if he wanted to do that he shud have taken up a different role, chairman of NCA(national cricket academy for instance)....a coach is judged by the results he produces and on that front,chappell has failed.Period.

Indian team has always been a team of glorious uncertainties. So this pathetic display does not pain me as much. I feel the basic reason for our failure was inexplicably poor batting. It could be seen coming too. We lost the one day series in WI due to poor batting, we lost i Malaysia due to poor batting, we lost in South Africa due to poor batting. All our stalwatrts were struggling for runs. The bowling which was supposed to be the weak link, actually performed very well. Even in the world cup I thought the bowlers did pretty well excpet for harbhajan. The overall fielding continues to be bad.

We simply could not correct the batting problem despite wins against WI and Sri Lanka at home on dead tracks. Deep down there was a feeling that come little bowler friendly tracks and we will struggle which is what happened against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

I think Harbhajan's failure cost us a lot. While spinners were making merry (3 innocuous ones from Bangladesh, Brad Hogg, Murali, Dilshan etc.), Harbhajan could neither get wickets nor stop runs. He continued to bowl poor middle and leg line at a fastish pace. Ramesh Powar with his loop and slow pace through the air would have been really handy.

A lot is mentioned about including Laxman in the one day team. Whoever watched him play in the domestic matches (Ranji trophy and the one dayers) will support this view. Not only he struggled for runs, he scratched around like a novice many times and his fielding was terrible to say the least.

I am not sure there are quick solutions. I think changing Ranji Format may help. We need to invite some of the foreign teams to participate as many times the opposition is just too weak. Participation from say top counties from England or australian domestic teams should help a lot. The quality of the pitches needs to improve drastically.

Coming to greg Chappell, I think he will be made a scapegoat though after he took over, his approach saw us winning record no. of games at a stretch batting second and were ranked no. 2.

Here go the reasons for India s exit :

1) Poor captaincy : Mr Wall doesnt bring his batting ideas to his captaincy. Though he defends and plays every great bolwer spell with defiance, the same doesnt come in his captaincy. He runs short of ideas when things go wrong. Created the rift back in the team which Mr Ganguly dissolved in his 5 yrs of tenure. He doesnt have strong instincts...Generally doesnt set attacking field when a wkt falls. Great example in SL game when Silva got out, Vaas edged next ball to slip for 4 and a slip wud hv got him....

2) Tinkering in batting : Sachin plays best when he opens, for unknown reasons few weeks before WC he s shifted to #4 or # 3 or #6 too. Sehwag is selected as a middle order batsmen. All proven n tested batsmen in openers slot are middle order batsmen now and Dravid himself opens, fails. Uthappa is prefered partner to Saurav on basis of a flashy innings vs WI in Chennai...

3) Weak bowling : Zaheer came back much later in the lead up to the world cup. Lot of dependance on new young faces led to a weaker attack, with Bhajji reduced to a container than an strike bowler and Kumble out of favor. Munaf reduces his pace suddenly when he was the fastest bowler in the country, Santh is maverick, Pathan s bowling failed in worst of times and so the balance got affected....

4) Batting failed : The singlemost reason why india got out was the famed batting failed. They couldnt handle very ordinary Bangla bowling but disciplined. A spin basher like Ganguly played to hands of Rafeeq, GTendulkar continued his weakness against left arm spinners (Vettori, Giles, Price etc ), Dhoni failed to live his reputation, Sehwag -- all know abt him, Dravid -- maintained his glum faced throughout the cup........

5 ) no point in blaming the coach, the domestic cricket or the # of teams in the circuit. All the great batsmen have been product of the same domestic system. When the team was winning, every one said how smaller cities r catching up......now when they hv failed they say number of teams r more...When India was only team who competed well with Aussies in Tests, the same team was gr9, but now they r flop stars and lesser guys like effigy burners, guys like Karim, Jimmy , Maninder and many more, say tht this team is good for nothing.......

Wholesole changes wont be good for the team and it wont provide the booty. Are the replacements ready ? Try young players in phases.....Take more young players to tour like Bangladesh in May and make them ready for int'l cricket with right mix of youth and experince........

Truly, a run-of-the-mill article from Mukul.
Presenting the same analysis again and again and at times over-analysing replies and words eg. inflammatory. I won't be surprised to see a letter by letter analysis in his next article.

The reasons are so many, it starts with the domestic league which is definitely crowded and has less quality. The players are selected based on political and geographical considerations. Young players who perform well have never been considered to graduate and represent the country. I think Chappell had a good process in place and when Vengsarkar came in, he seemed to have his own ideas and we were then back to the old players. Ganguly, Sehwag should not have been considered based on scoring some a century in a domestic tournament.

Where was Irfan Pathan in the World Cup? He should have been played in at least one game.

The team definitely needs a makeover and there should be youngsters in the team. Give them 5 matches to prove themselves and we will see results.

All these comments are fine... but has anybody looked at a conspiracy theory here...After watching the SL match, I have come to believe that these seniors had a sharp axe to grind in ousting Chappel as coach, given that his contract was up and the seniors wanted to make sure that Chappel does not come back for a 2nd term!!! But in doing so.. they forgot that the coach does not play on the field, players do... My 1st job if I was a selector would talk to Board in keeping Chappel for a year.. place the senior players (SRT, Gang, Bhajji, Kumble & Sehwag) on stand-by and pick a fresh team for the BD series with Dravid as captain and Yuvraj as his deputy.. The BD series will the best time to test the youngsters like Kaif, Raina, Gautam Gambir, Chawla etc...Give them a entire series both Tests and ODI and let them perform..

Mukul, your attitude sums up that of 90% of Indians. We want the result instantaneously, we never can wait an year or two or a decade. Whether it is matter of going abroad, or making money or winning cricket matches. We know that to invent something will take ages so we copy from others because we can't wait. Sure! we do not know if we would live that long to see GC's or XYZ's process is successful. For that matter we do not even know if we would live tomorrow. With your logic everyone of us should build our homes in oneday and not take a mortgage and plan for our future. Mr.Kesavan, Rome was not build in one day. I don't care whether Greg Chappel was right or wrong. I think failure of Inida was a collective one. Rather than priding our past or crying over the failures we should look to learn from our failures and also learn what not to do from others failures. Sports are played with a lot of commitment and passion. Sportsmen needs to be athletic, commited and passionate, with fire in their hearts to match a warrior and with a cool and calculated head. Could you tell me did any of our players exhibit anything like that on the ground in three matches they played. They were pegions in the two matches they failed and only looked like big bullys with poor those poor minnows. My appologies I even for their country name. One more thing, please don't call this a calamity. There are bigger calamities happening around the world like Iraq War, Global Warming, real estate inflation in India etc., etc.. Anyway let us all hope Indian cricket, this includes: board, selectors, coach, players, journalists and fans all learn something with this debacle.

Cheers

I think there is plenty of blame to go around but in particular I am critical of role Greg Chapell has played. Lets ask ourselves that in tenure as a coach what has Greg done for the players.

Some very good players have lost form e.g. Sehwag, Pathan, Dhoni ...

No real talent has been groomed to be a match winner. Sreesanth is the only one I will count as good and he was not good enough to play in WC.

Chapell should take a big responsibility for bringing Indian cricket in the state that it finds now.

I think the main mistake is not choosing Players like VVS Laxman and Suresh Raina. If you want to blame anybody blame the selection board first. Another reason is the lack of captainship and COACHING. The team need to learn how to play in pressure. The team that can play in pressure is a team. Indian fans are not asking you to win every tournaments of every worldcup they are simply asking indian team to perform well so we can be proud of our team.If this team dosn't change their performane Bangladesh will beat them reguarly.

A well written article Mr Kesavan. While the mud slinging and emotional reaction goes on, I wonder how many will actually appreciete the best point you made (at least according to me), i.e: despite India being a country of a billion, only a miniscule fraction end up playing outdoor sports in adult life, a situation which is vastly different in all of the top sporting nations - whether Australia and South Africa in cricket, or Brazil and Germany in soccer or New Zealand and USA in rugby/american football.

To be honest the reason for this is obvious to, and beyond the hands of cricket board right now. In India, because of the teeming billion, often survival itself is a problem. In a game like cricket, to do well one and make a career out of it needs to at least come up to Ranji level; now we are talking of being in top 400-500 amongst a billion, a scenario tougher than even India's famed "tough nut" exams like IIT JEE and CAT (for IIMs).

No wonder kids who are good at the game often feel the pressure to stop playing and keep poring over text books so that they eventually get into a decent college and have some assurance of scraping a survival.

One has to accept this fact. And instead of seeking refuge in history of India's sporting failures, the coach has to work with what he gets. If Chappell feels India's history is the root cause of its present woes, he may be right. But that also indicates he is not the man for the job. Its high time we had a change instead of bandying words and phrases like "process" and "long term".

As you rightly say: "In the long term, we are all dead"

Hi,
We should have included Laxman in the team.It would certainly have helped the team as he is a capable no.3.

I would make him the test captain & would include him in the ODI team for the next 2 years alteast.

WHY TEAM INDIA FAILED ??????

Firstly we should ask ourselves is this really a TEAM?
A Team is a bunch of people who work towards achieving a common goal. TEAM INDIA did not have a collective goal, it was and will always be personal goals that they want to achieve. Here we have too many players thinking they are Stars while actually speaking they are no where near it, except for Dravid and Tendulkar.
Take Ganguly's example, after being ousted from the team and after all the cancellation of his endorsements and sponsors this fellow went ahead and worked hard towards regaining his position in the team. He could do this only because he had the spare time to work hard towards it. If you read John Wright's book he clearly mentions that at times he had verbal duels with players like Shewag and Yuvraj who had a "who cares" attitude and never were serious about Practice.
The solution towards making Team India a top performer is to have an iron fist attitude and make them work hard for their money. After all ain't they representing the country, fighting for Nation's pride. So are those brave guys up there at the Border defending our country and look what are they paid and look at what these nincompoops are being paid.
Unless and Until BCCI does not curtail and restrict the number of endorsements and adverts that a player can do this is always going to be the case for India and we will read “ INDIA LOSES” more often. Also it should be important for BCCI to have a programme for the players to attend practices sessions, play domestic Cricket and based on Coach’s report on these attendances will the selection be based on.
We can keep on writing and giving our views on what went Wrong, but the bottomline is that India lost and it feels shameful that the Team which was termed PAPER TIGERS have been successful in proving the term to be correct.

Mukul , Shwet and all the others have opened up a great discussion. Few points that didnt get a mention was the place of Robin Uthappa in the team. He was picked based on a single destructive inning. Even agarkar hit India's fastet 50. Pathan Delivered at the top. Does that mean they ought to bat at the top??? The batting order had to change to accomodate him.. The Result.. Sachin had to Drop down the order and Sachin,Robin both failed!!! Would it not have made better sense to include a Solid Player like Laxman or even brilliant fielders like Kaif/Raina. The WC2007 team's nucleus is the same as that of 2003 WC team. It is not that the team lacks the talent. The captain who takes stock of the situation in the middle clearly was not upto the task.Seeing the fear of losing in the team, appears that Dravid had clearly failed to inspire the team. Ganguly did that when he took over after the big catastrphe of 2000 Match Fixin Scandal. Dravid took over after SG and Coach spat. The downfall started there!!! The victories against Srilanka was because Vaas,Murali, Jayasurya didnt tour india.Otherwise flaws would have been imminent there. We must accept that Dravid is not even a good leader. In the wake of Ganguly Chappel Fiasco , rather than being a bridge in making the foreign coach understand the indian style of teamwork,work culture they've adopted a radical approach which doesn't suit the indian style. And add Kiran More to all this!!!! Alas!!! A selector charged of asking money from Abhijit Kale for selection was speaking of setting Indian Cricket Right.. It was a failure of team management. No point blaming the system. The batting was obviously a bigtime failure. But he major disappointments are the lack of seasoned players like Powar ( > 100 FC games) , Laxman ( Very Very Special) , Kumble (played only against Bermuda). Unfortunate Sreesanth missed out in the playing 11. Apart from that its only a poor lack of strategy & innovation from the team management, ridiculous application of technique that led to the downfall. Indian Cricket needs a captain who can motivate the players on the field ,be aggressive, be agile on the field. Greg Chappel's methods have not clearly suited Team India. He was a great player. He has never understood abt managing normal players. This is evident. So its high time we dont appoint coaches by their Stature. Players like Wright,Whatmore,Woolmer were not great players. But they were able to deliver. I believe that failure is just a manifestation of the many stategic blunders, the coach's predujices against Class players like Laxman, a poor captain and Appaling Batting Display.

I don't pretend to understand the structure of Indian cricket, and I am not sure that wholesale reform to an Australian system would necessarily work, but it does seem clear that something has gone wrong with India over the last year or so. If you look back to England winning the last Test when they toured, you can see the same phenomenon (and by much the same collection of players) - that is, a bizarre collapse by a "strong" batting line-up that should have had no trouble getting a draw. It does seem that India's morale is shaky, for whatever reason, and this ought to be investigated. I suspect that Chappell made a mistake in beginning his reforms with a massive fight with Ganguly. Maybe there was no choice - we don't know how open Ganguly was to change - but it still left an obvious division in the ranks. That said, India's one day form looked excellent for about a year, and the decline to pitiful inadequacy is quite recent. My guess is that India made the classic mistake of beginning the reforms, going through some pain and division - and then effectively went back to square one. Ganguly came back to the team, the old guard were brought back for one last fling - and the divisions and anger remained, without the positive results that the partial reform had produced. For this, I suspect the BCCI/selectors are mostly to blame. I do think that Chappell's attempts to manipulate the media have made matters worse, causing more bitterness and more division. For the future, India should give the coach more power, spend less time cashing in on the game and do more to develop it. Improve grounds and training programs, spend less time on political infighting, and make it clear that a place in the team depends on consistent performance, discipline, and results. Finally, stop cossetting the non-performers. How long did India put up with lazy mediocrity from e.g. Sehwag? Does one good day counterbalance a bad year? This would be my set of suggestions for India's future....

Most of the guys who want Laxman back and Yuvraj to Depute Dravid are out of mind.

Laxman is a spent force, he WAS good but over the years his refelxes have gone slow. BCCI shld be loking at getting new blood.

While it comes to Mr. Yuvraj Singh the less written about him the better. He surely does not have it him to become the future captain of India. It takes more then Film star looks to become a Captain.

Everyone......Why India lost....its simple and easy.

1. Indian players are fat and unfit...Sehwag, Tendulkar and company are unfit and fat. Unfit equals not enough oxygen going to the brain due to constricted fatty blood vessels thus not having intelligence to make good batting shots and strokes.

2. Indian players are arrogant. They live in India and are treated like Gods and they start believing they are gods who are entitled to win a match just becoz they are India? They got there behinds whipped 5-0 in South Africa at the end of year tour last year. Have all you people forgotten that whipping? Where was the arrogance of these Indian gods then?

3. Indian bowling attack is pathetic. Agarkar and Zarheer Khan are the worst bowlers ever to represent India? How can a fairy like Agarkar represent India? South Africa left their 2 fastest bowlers (Johan van de Wath and Dale Steyn) at home and are still a poer packed team. South Africa has 48 million people and has many good fast bowlers, how can Indian with a population of over a BILLION not find 2 fast bowlers that are better than Agarkar and Zarheer Khan? Does India suffer from a lack of reality?
The bowling is pathetic, end of story.

3. India is not a team. One for all and all for one does not exist in the Indian team. Ganguly and his arrogance along with his pet players who all never perform but still represent India should be fired and sent somewhere to learn some humility. How can people in India idolise Ganguly, he is an arrogant and disgraceful person and should never ever have been given the Indian cricket shirt to wear on his back.

India loosing is the best thing EVER to happen to India....maybe now they will select the best players based on merit and performance and not on political reasons.

I am a South Africa Indian and i have always supported India, but after this world cup looking at the rot that is Indian cricket i cannot bring myself to support Indian until they decide to play with honour and humility.
Indian cricket is like the blind following the blind....The blind indian supporters following the blind indian players....

im tired of supporting a team of disgraceful players and a disgraceful Indian cricket association which has no respect for the Indians globally that support them....

Go Sri Lanka....a professional and well managed team.

Hi All,

It is interesting to see the various explanations and analyses of what India needs to win in cricket. No one seems to have grasped a fundamental point - cricket is a GAME, which is largely dictated by the rules of probability, albeit not as much as games of pure chance. On any given day, any one of the two sides (who are not vastly different in their skill levels) can win. This is just what happened against Bangladesh. An event that had a small, but not very small, probability actually happened, and India lost. It is as simple as that. To look for deeper reasons and agonize over selection, strategy, etc, is really useless. Could we have replayed our 3 group matches a million times, we would have beaten Sri Lanka 550,000 times, Bangladesh 900,000 times, and Bermuda, 999,000 times - yes, we could actually lose to even Bermuda some times even if that probability is low. I hope you guys get the message and stop agonizing! Cricket is a beautiful and highly complex game where chance plays a crucial role, and this makes it all the more interesting. So let us just sit back and enjoy the rest of the world cup.

Hi All,

It is interesting to see the various explanations and analyses of what India needs to win in cricket. No one seems to have grasped a fundamental point - cricket is a GAME, which is largely dictated by the rules of probability, albeit not as much as games of pure chance. On any given day, any one of the two sides (who are not vastly different in their skill levels) can win. This is just what happened against Bangladesh. An event that had a small, but not very small, probability actually happened, and India lost. It is as simple as that. To look for deeper reasons and agonize over selection, strategy, etc, is really useless. Could we have replayed our 3 group matches a million times, we would have beaten Sri Lanka 550,000 times, Bangladesh 900,000 times, and Bermuda, 999,000 times - yes, we could actually lose to even Bermuda some times even if that probability is low. I hope you guys get the message and stop agonizing! Cricket is a beautiful and highly complex game where chance plays a crucial role, and this makes it all the more interesting. So let us just sit back and enjoy the rest of the world cup.

Lets bow out from the sport and focus on Kabadi.