No doubt India has underachieved in white ball cricket losing all those knockouts. No fan can claim that India to be No.1 white ball team in the last 10 years ( they probably are in top 3 with respect to win ratio)
But there is also no doubt about India being the top test nation in the period from 2016-23 ( ongoing). Few achievements
- No.1 ICC ranking ICC for about 5 years
- 2 WTC Final *
- Unreal domintaion at home
- Super competitive away and important win/draw tests vs top teams every series.
- Whitewash away teams like SL, WI & BD
Moving forward, its going to be England though as they have reinvented test cricket with their brand of cricket. India can challenge them as they enter the transition phase.
REASON FOR ICC mens teams failure
-no 1 Kohli
a batsman who fails to show up in crunch games with any consistency. a captain who groomed the worst batsmen to play for odi and t20 cricket . the whole of above period was his captaincy mainly .
-wrong selections for crunch games, big ego , thwarting of younger batsmen etc few traits which kohli will be remembered. while he encouraged fast bowling and was lucky to have the spin twins at his disposal , in limited overs and in test wtc finals, he has been a champion of bad selections.
coaching - meek coaching surrendered to kohli captaincy in limited overs and teams were invariably imbalanced
ipl-ipl has enhanced indian cricketers while made india poor in icc tournaments. indian cricketers are exposed to worlds top batsmen .indian team has no unknown commodity. injuries in ipl lead to poor outcomes. players try to peak in ipl and hence when time comes for icc tournaments, a semifinal appearance is saisfactory for them .
finally, seniority and talunt culture is to blame. curent examples
tests-
pujara and kohli are past their sell by dates. their record and avg last two years speaks for itself. still you dont find kohli playing domestic or pujara playing ranji . india was known to field players in form-vvs laxman is a good example. now we pick these in form players for a teams and keep them in a teams until somebody dies or rots like rahane
odi
this format , india has done decently. in icc tournaments , india has ended up with poor middle order. historically , teams that have won world cups have rock solid middle order. aussies had michael bevan etc. india had yuvraj singh and dhoni. england and new zealand bat till no 8-9 with solid middle order.
last 5 years india had jorneymen middle order batsmen. vijay shankar and ambati rayudu are examples of players with very little talent and somehow got in when infact shaw, gill etc might have been playing or should have been playing
t20
this is the most interesting format and perhaps india will be successful inthis format first
-india did not have long tail and our top 3 were essentially stat padding in t20
-strike rate rather than avg is key and our players bought in this idea late. rahane and kohli played well against west indies but were not going flat out in the wc final . kohli took 5 more years to learn from that and still is not a finished product. sky has shown how to play he game ...
going ahead why i am optimistic
tests
-rohit has shown good leadership . he keeps faith in players, has a plan and leads from the front. india with gills emergence, sarfaraz etc in wings is bound to be top 3. wtc finals is one off and should not be a big deal imo. no 1 test ranking is more validated and i would prefer to look at how much time a team can stay no 1
odi and t20
rohit has shown improtance of strike rate and is willing to play a 30 ball 45 which is the template this team is following. they dont stop at 100 and all want to continue high strike rate and big 100s. bowling is very strong with pace, swing etc.
my prediction
-next odi world cup -india wins
-world test championship final- 50-50 absence of pant is reason aussies can win. if india manages to get gill and sky in this team, there is a chance we will win it with ease.
-next t20 world cup- india will be finalists. will be between india and england. england will win but india will have head high
kohli being sacked as captain has been biggest positive. chetan sharma not as selector is another huge positive.
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