wow.. I slept off after we restricted them to 130..
So much for the same team theory..
Ian Chappell hit the nail on the head that the Indian team (the captain, coach etc. included) were just too overconfident coming in here... Some of the batting has been exposed and these guys better learn to combat quick, short pitched bowling into the body... Losing is not bad as long as you can learn from it and hopefully, Dhoni will understand that stuff like having a struggling batsman at 3 will never win you games, even if he is the captain and perhaps the best LOI batsman of recent times...
I suppose the lessons for INdia from this campaign would be:
1. You need to take back up openers and back up batsmen. Packing your squad with bowlers makes no sense and gets found out when you have niggles all around.
2. Proper fitness tests are required before selection. Trusting just word of physios who haven't even met the players doesn't seem enough. Also, if you are taking injured guys on tour in the hopes that they will get fit soon, it makes sense to have backups around.. Couldn't the BCCI just take care of expenses and have two more guys with the team as "backups" for Sehwag and Zaheer?
3. A lot of our bowlers need to get better at T20 bowling, mainly Zak and Ishant. Might make sense to rest these two from all T20s too and preserve them for the longer formats where they are so much more useful.
4. Irfan should not bat at 7, Yousuf should not bat at 6... Both seem to be one position too high in international matches...
5. The parttime spin options could be used more often... We didn't seem to have a plan B once batsmen went after Ojha... More worryingly, Ojha himself doesn't seem to have a plan B.
6. Taking one or two batsmen with decent to good techniques will always help on pitches which are not roads...
I don't mind picking the same side, perhaps Dhoni genuinely believes this is the best 11 out of the players available. Unfortunately, I don't think Ravindra Jadeja should be anywhere near a T20 side for India.. his batting just does no cut it and his bowling is not better than Ojha's... And I guess even if we did replace Raina with some other youngster, they may get found out too. You just don't come across 140Ks+ fast bowling with balls directed to your ribcage in India at all...
Hopefully, Dhoni and the whole team, including staff, can get better through this experience.
One thing that did worry me is that Dhoni seemed to be thinking that all criticism in India is unwarranted.. He said like "hoepfully we will win a few and they will be back praising us again"... That is worrying. While most of the criticism is indeed unjust, there are quite a few that are valid.
He didn't need to put himself at 3 unnecessarily when Raina had done well there.. It was a bad move regardless of the fact that most probably Raina would have been found out at 3..
And Ravindra Jadeja is a misfit for T20s unless he is actually considered to be better than Ojha as a left arm spinner... And one would think Murali Kartik was better than either anyways.
hopefully, he can at least understand that SOME criticism is still quite fair.