Team India, currently the no.2 ranked ODI side in the world and no.4 in T20 internationals, has achieved almost everything but one thing.
A win in ICC tournament has evaded India for quite some time now. Precisely speaking India won its last ICC trophy in 2013 when they defeated England in the Champions trophy final.
Since then, India has taken part in 5 ICC tournaments have failed to win any of those. They have reached the knockouts each and every time but for some reason have failed to go on and bring the cup home.
Here we analyze 5 major reasons as to why team India is not able to win big tournaments since 2014:
1) Over dependence on certain players.
Team India, evidently, depends a lot on their top order. They have the strongest top order among all the cricket playing nations. While it is a good thing to have, but there are cons to it.
Such good abilities from the top order players, evades the much needed match practice for the middle and lower order. When put to bat suddenly in a high pressure game, the middle order batsman fail to do the job.
While this is not an excuse for the underperformance but it is definitely a factor.
2) The two phases of spinning options.
Till 2017, India played finger spinners in the form of Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. The pitches were flatter in these days and finger spinners around the world were being found out.
The inability of spinners to perform dented India’s hope for a win in the tournament. India then shifted to the wrist spinners in Kuldeep and Chahal. The duo was great in bilateral series but the pressure got to these young spinners on important days and hence even they couldn’t perform.
3) Not playing the right batsman on right positions.
For some reasons India despite having the quality of batsman they have are not able to put them in the right pieces.
Case in example, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Dhoni was no more the player he used to be after 2015. Still, he pushed himself down the order and when India needed him to come at the top and stabilize the innings, he was not there.
You need your top players to lead from front in such high pressure games.
4) Not planning strategically and following patterns too much.
Remember India winning the previous tournaments? Each win had a special trump card like move, bowling Joginder Sharma in the last over, Dhoni promoting himself to no.4, Ishant bowling that unexpected over.
India did not have any such moves in these tournaments. They followed the patterns too much and lacked the out of box thinking.
5) The luck factor.
Let’s face it; luck plays a big factor in such tournaments. Dhoni getting run out in the 2019 semifinal completely knocked India out of the tournament.
Various other incidents like a skier landing in a safe place, an umpire’s call decision not going your way indeed are huge factors on any given day.