Asia cup was considered as preparation for the Indian team for the upcoming T20 World Cup next month. The team showed dismal performance and could not qualify for the Final of the Asia cup.
There are a number of reasons for the loss of both the matches in Super 4 of Asia Cup. The first loss was with arch-rival Pakistan and that gave a lot of wounds to the Indian Fans, these wounds were not even healed and India lost another match to Sri Lanka.
The inexperienced Sri Lankan side showed great fighting spirit and grit and won both the matches against Afghanistan and India and are now in the Finals.
What lessons should the Indian Team and management learn from the disastrous performance in the ongoing Asia Cup?
- Poor bowling lineup.
- Poor Team selection
- Unable to hit the stumps to get run-outs
- Dismal catching performance costs the crucial matches.
- Poor shot selection of the batters.
First of all the Indian Pace bowling lineup was inexperienced and the selection of the team was also not good. Avesh Khan got injured and was ruled out of the competition after the first match and the team did not have his proper replacement.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the only experienced pacer in the lineup. However, he was the one who was hit all around the park in the 19th over of both the match against Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
This shows that in the absence of Bumrah, Indian pacers are not effective in the death overs and leak runs.
Poor Team Selection
The playing 11 was not properly looking to the situation and in the absence of Ravindra Jadeja. I did not understand at all why Deepak Hooda was in the team. Axar Patel was a perfect replacement for Ravindra Jadeja. Axar is a left-hander and excellent fielder. Also, he can bowl left-arm spin and is capable of bowling his full quota of 4 overs, which would have been difficult for the right-handers.
If Deepak Hooda was selected then why he was not given the bowling?
Missed chances of Run outs
There were quite a number of instances where Indian fielders missed hitting the stumps to get run-out from even close range.
Are you not doing the practice for this? Getting runouts is very crucial in a high-pressure match. If you get one or two runs outs then the opposite team will think of taking singles and this can save at least 5 to 10 runs which play a vital role in deciding the match.
Poor Catching
I understand that catches may be dropped and it happens as players are human beings. No player of any team will drop the catch intentionally, however, catches wins matches and catches lose matches.
The drop of Arshdeep and Yuzvendra Chahal in a match where your team’s future is on stake is unacceptable.
Youzvendra is an excellent spinner very intelligent but on the contrary, he is a poor fielder and a very poor batsman.
You cannot be in the team only with excellence in one department. Every player in the team has to be an excellent fielder first and then the bowler or the batsman.
If you are not a good fielder, you should not be in the team period.
A good fielder can save at least 5 to 10 runs on the field and that matters at the end of the match. A poor fielder can leak 5 to 10 runs and drop a simple catch then the team loses the match.
Rishabh Pant needs to know how to control his aggression and shot selection. He has played literally the wrong shots at the wrong time and has thrown his wicket. Pant also needs to learn how to rotate the strike. He is a very good hitter and can hit six and fours but he also needs to rotate the strike and save his wicket as he is a match winner. He can turn the game on India’s way on his own.
Pant did not take his glove off during the last overs, as he must be aware that the batter will take a single if he misses hitting the ball. Had Pant taken off the glove of his throwing arm, then he might have been able to hit the stum and could have caused a run-out against Sri Lanka.
Pant is a follower of Dhoni and as we have all seen Dhoni used to take off his glove during these last overs and has created a lot of runouts for the Indian Team.
The Indian team management has now the uphill task of proper team selection and learning the lessons from the mistakes they have made in Asia Cup.