Virat Kohli made a decision to give up the captaincy of India’s Twenty20 International team ahead of the ICC World Cup.
There were suggestions that he might have done so before the campaign, which happened to crash and burn, but, then the question would have been of him abandoning ship before a major challenge and leaving a new skipper to guide it.
While it is a fact that India have not been able to crack the code in global limited-overs tournaments under Kohl, with Ravi Shastri backing him up, their record in bilateral series has been exemplary.
Across formats, India have tasted success, home and away, including historic Test wins in Australia and England.
Kohli will no longer be captain after the World Cup and Shastri’s time as a coach has come to an end.
This means that India will be taking fresh guard, to use a cricket metaphor, with a new captain, most likely Rohit Sharma, and a new coach in Rahul Dravid.
The question that this new combo will have to address, when it comes to the shortest format of the game, is how they want to move things forward.
Against Pakistan and New Zealand, an excellent Indian batting line-up never got going. It’s not that the batting line-up failed, it’s almost as though they never turned up.
Physically, they were very much there at the crease, but, mentally, it did appear that they did not have the clarity needed to execute their plans and make the most of their undeniable skill and talent.
Without making any excuses, Rohit Sharma attempted to make sense of what happened, once India had made a late course correction, hammering Afghanistan.
“I think the approach today from everyone was different, and I wish it was in the first two games, as well, but it didn’t happen. But that can happen when you are on the road for a long time,” he said. “Decision making sometimes can be a problem, and that is exactly what happened in the first two games. We are a very good team. It’s just that we were not good on that particular day against Pakistan and New Zealand. But yes, today the game we played, it’s pretty much sums it up that this is the kind of team we are, and when we play fearlessly, this is what we get.”
There is no doubt that the bubble life and being on the road for nearly seven months has taken a toll on this Indian team.
In other major teams, players have withdrawn for personal reasons, have cited the inability to cope with the altered circumstances we live in, just to cope.
In India, however, it is less easy for a player to take similar steps.
For one, the competition for spots is so fierce that if you gave yours up you might not get it back. For another, speaking of mental health issues is still nascent, and admission that you are struggling could be seen as being mentally weak.
If decision making was at the heart of India’s failures against Pakistan and New Zealand, those who run Indian cricket will soon have another tough call to make.
Should the attempt be to take the best all-format batsmen they have and help them adapt to a Twenty20 mindset or should they stack the team with youngsters who do not carry the baggage of other formats?
There is merit in both arguments.
New Zealand work on the traditional format and are successful, while West Indies are the other extreme and do equally well.
Most players in the West Indies Twenty20 set up don’t play Test cricket, play the very occasional game for country or are just flat out freelancers who roam the world, taking part in one franchise league after another.
While they crashed and burned in this World Cup, there is no denying that West Indies were one of the early adopters to have a fearless Twenty20 mindset and shaped the way the game may be approached, providing a template.
Dravid, along with whoever is named captain, will have to decide just how they go about being fearless with the bat in Twenty20 cricket.
One thing is clear, unless a fearless approach is adopted, the chances of extended success are diminished. In global events, this is, even more, the case as a team comes up against new opposition and new conditions every game.
Whether the new think tank opts for a fresh approach or decides to invest in working harder on refining what exists remains to be seen.
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