India vs England Semi-Final: India’s sorry run in ICC knockouts and chance for course correction

India will take on England in the second semi-final of T20 World Cup 2024.

Why do India suffer knockout blues at the ICC events? The question has to be asked. India haven’t won an ICC trophy for more than a decade now, and it can’t be plain bad luck. There’s a school of thought that the players struggle to get the better of the pressure of expectations and make mistakes in crucial moments.

The last time India won an ICC event was the 2013 Champions Trophy, when MS Dhoni led the team to glory. Since then, India have played 10 knockout matches across formats and lost nine. In the last three World Cups – 50-over and T20 combined – India have won 20 out of 23 matches, which attests to consistency. Two of the three defeats, however, have come in the knockout stage – the semi-final against England at the 2022 T20 World Cup and the final versus Australia at the 2023 (50-over) World Cup.

The losing sequence started in the 2014 T20 World Cup final against Sri Lanka, when Yuvraj Singh got stuck, laboured to 11 off 21 balls and the team lost momentum. Three years later, in the Champions Trophy final at The Oval, Jasprit Bumrah’s no-ball gave Fakhar Zaman a reprieve early into his innings, and the Pakistan opener went on to score a match-winning 114 off 106 deliveries.

In between, India lost to Australia in the semi-final of the 2015 World Cup and went down to West Indies in Mumbai in the last-four stage of the 2016 T20 World Cup. At the 2019 World Cup, New Zealand pulled off a stunning win over India in the semi-final at Old Trafford against the odds. Last year, Rohit Sharma and his men were tactically outsmarted in the World Cup final in Ahmedabad. India have also lost two World Test Championship finals, to New Zealand in 2021 and against Australia a couple of years later.

India are yet again in the knockouts of an ICC tournament and they will face England in Providence, Guyana, in the semi-final of the ongoing T20 World Cup on Thursday. Two years ago, they had suffered a 10-wicket thrashing in the semi-final against England in Adelaide. Has anything changed this time?

India didn’t have their bowling royalty, Bumrah, in the last edition of the T20 World Cup. They didn’t have Kuldeep Yadav either, another genuine match-winner. Bumrah so far has taken 11 wickets in six matches at an economy rate of 4.08 in this T20 World Cup. Kuldeep has accounted for seven scalps in three games at an economy rate of 6.25. The current Indian team is well-balanced and the pitch at Providence is expected to be to their liking. This is a big opportunity for course correction.

But there’s a Virat Kohli-sized problem. A five-ball duck against Australia took his tournament tally to 66 runs at 11.00, with a strike-rate of 100. He is clogging up the top order and that might prove to be India’s bugbear in the knockouts.

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