India’s T20 World Cup Debacle: The Devil’s Advocate

There are two types of Indian Cricket fans during world events. 1) Beat Pakistan even if you lose the Cup. 2) Win the Cup, nothing else matters. Unfortunately, the Indian team had irked both types of fans in the first two games itself.

India’s T20 World Cup Debacle: The Devil’s Advocate

The moment India lost to Pakistan in their opening game on 24th October, the daggers were out and the team was subjected to a lot of hate. The title favourites were suddenly in a very precarious position. As if losing to arch rivals against whom the Indians were hitherto unbeaten wasn’t enough, their next game with a team against whom they have been historically poor at ICC events, virtually became a must win game because of the way the Groups were stacked. The inevitable happened in the next game. The team played uncharacteristically poorly under the immense pressure and succumbed to the Kiwis. With 3 more games to go, Indians were out of the semifinal race already, almost.

There are two types of Indian Cricket fans during world events. 1) Beat Pakistan even if you lose the Cup. 2) Win the Cup, nothing else matters. Unfortunately, the Indian team had irked both types of fans in the first two games itself. There was trolling, name calling and abuse for team India. The fact that the team made some tactical changes in the game against NZ did not go down well with anybody and clinical dissection of the team began. Everything from the religion of Shami to the IPL was seen as a reason for failure. I have heard a lot of such discussions on various platforms and thus thought there was a need for a Devil’s Advocate here. So here, I will try to give my two cents to this entire scenario and try to make sense of things.