Why India keeps flopping at T20 World Cups

As many as eight players from India’s XI in their final 2021 T20 World Cup game featured in the side that lost to England in Adelaide. If you found that shocking, then consider this: Two of the three absentees were Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja, who missed this world cup only because of injury. Both are first-choice players, and would have certainly made the XI if they were around, and then the number of common players between these two XIs would have been 10. That’s right — 10!

India essentially came to the 2022 World Cup with the same broken team. That, in spite of trying out 29 players in the interim; and a full-blown IPL season featuring hundreds of Indian players, in what is touted to be the crucible for all T20 talent. What does this say about the depth of India’s T20 talent pool? What does this say about the IPL?

The funny thing is, you could still argue that Shami’s selection was reasonable. For he came in as the only viable replacement for Bumrah, who had some prior bowling experience in Australia. Indeed, Shami was part of India’s 2015 ODI World Cup side in Australia and has played some Tests there. However, he had never played T20 cricket in Australia before this October!

Cast a look at the other teams. India were dumped out of this world cup by the England opener Alex Hales. Over the years, Hales has become a fixture at the T20 Big Bash League in Australia, and yesterday was his fifth 50 at the Adelaide Oval in that format. It must have been one of his easiest, coming as it did, against a bowling side that was clueless about the lengths to bowl at the oddly shaped Adelaide Oval. "One of the best grounds in the world to bat in the Powerplay," Hales would say after the match. What did India accomplish in their Powerplay? In the absence of any venue expertise — a somnolent 38 runs.

As I have detailed in an earlier piece, the BCCI bars its players from playing any T20 franchise cricket outside of the IPL. And that is literally why they had to turn to a Test bowler, who had not been in their T20 plans for a year.

Hales is not the only player in the world cup with Big Bash experience. His opening partner Jos Buttler has played 18 games for Sydney Thunder. Pakistan’s gun speedster Haris Rauf played for the Melbourne Stars, and his fierce spell against India in the league phase brought to bear all of that experience — it took a Kohli special to deny him that day. Pakistan’s all-rounder Shadab Khan has played for the Brisbane Heat. Every top team in the world cup has a handful of players who have played in such conditions. Every team, but one, that is.

T20 is a rapidly evolving format, and this evolution happens on a yearly basis, in leagues spread across the world. These leagues are lucrative, especially to players who can’t make it to the rarefied highest levels in Test cricket. The players, coaches and analysts in these leagues are quick to latch on to trends — match-ups, hard lengths, death hitting, slow bouncers. These ideas cross-pollinate, from league to league, and from player to international team-mate. Shadab and Rauf pass on what they know to Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi. Buttler and Hales spread their wisdom to their England mates who haven’t been in Australia. India’s players turn to their team-mates and receive great wisdom about how they need to play in Mumbai, Ranchi and Kolkata. Great preparation for a world cup when it gets held in India, but of no use at other times.

It’s fair to say that India were reactive throughout this tournament, and if not for the incandescent Suryakumar Yadav and Kohli, they may have not even reached the semis. But, in reality, India had no option but to be reactive under these conditions that they knew nothing of.

Most teams have figured out that T20 is a whole new format, and needs a whole new set of batters. The days of the all-format specialist are all but done — Kane Williamson, Ben Stokes and Babar have had poor tournaments, and Steve Smith didn’t even make Australia’s first XI.

India on the other hand, continue to field Rohit, KL Rahul and Kohli as their top three across white-ball formats. This isn’t because all three of them are GOATs — only one is — but because India’s thinking is stuck in the dark ages. In this world cup, Rahul conceded maidens in the opening over of a match twice. Conceding a maiden is criminal in T20 cricket. Doing so in the Powerplay is outright suicide. Doing it twice is reason enough for an inquisition. Yet, Rahul got away with it, and continued to get the support of his coach and captain. How can you blame him? Rahul cemented his India T20 spot by batting sedately to ensure he got the Orange Cap in a couple of IPL seasons. If the selectors incentivise anchoring, why wouldn’t the batters anchor?

Soon after India’s defeat, Rohit had no qualms in blaming his bowlers for the defeat, despite having put up a significantly below-par score, after having gone at barely run-a-ball for 15 overs. How ignorant are India’s batting stars about the challenges of modern batting?

We also suffer from a superstar hegemony problem. It took all sorts of calisthenics for Greg Chappell to remove a non-contributing Sourav Ganguly in 2005. History later repeated itself when MS Dhoni had to deal with Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag past their prime. And irony died a thousand deaths when Dhoni himself overstayed his welcome leading up to the 2019 World Cup simply because no one had the guts to drop him. India may well face the same issue with their top three. One yearns for the innocence of 2007, when T20 was considered too trivial for Sachin Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly, who opted out of the inaugural world cup. It is no coincidence that India won that world cup with a hungry, ambitious team. They could do with a similar purge now.

When it comes to batting, you could, at least, say that India’s woes were bad selection. Prithvi Shaw, Sanju Samson, Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan are waiting in the wings, and will rightfully get extended runs in the near future. What of the bowling though?

T20 bowling attacks have a set template: You need fast, swing bowlers upfront, preferably left-arm seamers, such as Shaheen Afridi, Mitchell Starc and Trent Boult . You need a really fast hard-length operator who pushes batters back — the Rauf, Lockie Ferguson, Mark Wood prototype. You need a leg-spinner — Adil Rashid, Ish Sodhi, Rashid Khan and Shadab Khan all showed why.

India came to this world cup with none of these variants, with the partial exception of Arshdeep Singh as the left-arm seamer. And in Bumrah’s absence, they were also without a yorker specialist for the slog overs. There were a raft of quicks who impressed in the IPL — Avesh Khan, Mohsin Khan and Umran Malik — who inexplicably didn’t make the squad to Australia. Outside of Yuzvendra Chahal, who himself didn’t elicit enough confidence to get a game, India don’t have promising leg-spinners in the set-up. It was chastening to see them go back to Ravichandran Ashwin’s unimaginative off-spin, a full five years after they had themselves declared that he was outdated as a limited-overs cricketer.

Maybe there are better bowling options in India, hidden out of sight, stuck in the grass-roots somewhere, plying their wares at the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament. Are the selectors watching? Is anyone watching? Or is our interest limited to the blinding glitz of the IPL? It’s unclear who in Indian cricket is tasked with identifying and grooming these players.

Which then brings us to Rahul Dravid, the coach. Dravid has always been among the sharpest brains in cricket, and is doubtless a great mentor and a finishing coach. The impact of his time with the India U19 and India A teams needs no repeating. Yet, as India coach, Dravid has been strangely ineffective, across formats. It’s unclear if he lacked the agency to push changes to the T20 side, after having given so many new names a go between the world cups. We should be mindful that Dravid has largely inherited Shastri’s team, and he’s done so at a time when a lot of players are nearing the end of their careers. With Kohli's ouster as captain, the emphasis on fitness seems to have gone, too.

The next phase of Indian cricket won’t be easy — and it will only be made harder by the galling absence of ICC silverware during the strong era that preceded it. Is Dravid the right person to be coaching the senior team through this period? Or is he likely to be more effective in the grass-roots, identifying and guiding the next crop of players?

T20 is a fickle format. Pakistan are in the final after a gloriously comical campaign. England made it in spite of losing to Ireland. Defending champions Australia could not make it to the semi-finals in home conditions. It would be too easy to attribute India’s failure to the randomness of the format. In reality, it is that randomness that even helped India make it to the semi-final.

While India’s T20 may be stuck in the past, they are still one of the best Test teams. And when the ODI World Cup kicks off in India next year, they will be the overwhelming favourites to win. Perhaps, not exposing India's talent core to global franchise cricket, and hence being poor in T20, is a small price to pay for being a great Test side.

However, with all the money and patronage Indian cricket enjoys, and the people pool at their disposal, they should, perhaps, be bossing the third format too. There’s plenty they’ll need to set right to get there — if even one out of Shami, Rahul and Ashwin show up for the next T20 World Cup in 2024, they would have failed once again.