It has been only doom and gloom for the Indian cricket team players and fans at the knockout stages of international events organized by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The last time India laid their hands on silverware was the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013 under the guidance of MS Dhoni.
Post that, India hasn’t been able to crack the code at the knockout stages of the international events. Rohit Sharma would be hoping to break this unwanted record in the upcoming World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia.
Notably, the WTC final will be played at The Oval and is slated to begin on 7th June 2023. India would be hoping to win their first ICC event since 2013.
In this article, we take a look at a few reasons why India fails at the ICC events every single time:
Form of top-order batters in knockout stages
India has always been a batting unit that is heavily dependent on the top order. And their inability to score runs in crunch moments have dug India a big grave.
Take for instance the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 finals against Pakistan. India was chasing a humongous total of 339 runs and the top-order batter in the form of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and Virat Kohli scored 0, 21, and 5 runs respectively.
In the semi-finals of the ICC ODI World Cup 2019 versus New Zealand. India’s famed top-order trio of Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Virat Kohli scored 1 run each. The failure to have good starts has always come back to bite in the foot!
Mental fatigue
Another major reason why India hasn’t been able to produce the desired results in the knockout stages is the mental fatigue of the cricketers. The number of games that are played in the year leading up to an ICC event by India is quite high.
Plus, the Indian Premier League (IPL) takes place and there are around 70-75 matches that took place in a span of 2 months. The workload management of players doesn’t happen properly and this results in mental fatigue as well as physical fatigue.
Lack of all-rounders
This point was stated by the former legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar too. He felt that the lack of all-rounders has been a major factor in India not being successful at the highest level.
“There is only one reason why this team has been left disappointed in ICC tournaments (ODI and T20I). If you look at the teams that won the 1983 and 2011 World Cups or even the 1985 World Championship of Cricket-winning side, they were all full of outstanding all-rounders,” the former Indian captain told AajTak.
“There were many batters who could bowl and the bowlers could bat. The numbers 6,7 and 8 require all-rounders which all these victorious teams had. The likes of Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina could bowl and bat very well,” he added.
Till date, India has won 2 ICC ODI World Cups, 1 ICC T20 World Cup, and 1 ICC Champions Trophy.
Also read: WTC 2023: Can India Finally Break The ICC Trophy Jinx?
