Why the Defending Champs got knocked out

Team India is out of the 2009 Twenty20 World Championship after consecutive defeats against the West Indies and England. It was the first time the Men in Blue were really tested in the tournament and they didn’t look up to scratch.

So what went wrong for the Indians in the Super 8 stage? For one, they got off to poor starts with bat and ball, and ended up playing catch up for the rest of the innings. The Quick Start batting and bowling numbers show that India was outplayed in the first six overs of every innings.

Matchwise Performance by India in the Super 8s.

In particular, the batting at the top of the order did not live up to expectations. Ravindra Jadeja’s laboured 35-ball innings has been spoken about a lot and his knock was hugely responsible for India’s defeat. But the rest of the top order didn’t fire either- Gambhir, Rohit Sharma and Raina were outperformed by their counterparts in the Super 8s.

Batting Momentum scores based on Ind-WI and Ind-Eng matches

Top 3 Batsman total

India didn’t do a great job in the field either- there were plenty of misfields and dropped catches. Not surprisingly, quite a few Indian players ended up with negative fielding points for their efforts.

Fielding points based on Ind-WI and Ind-Eng matches

In the end, the team didn’t play to potential and not everyone played their role- which meant there was too much responsibility on the likes of Yuvraj Singh. And that’s why we will see a new champion crowned at this year’s T20 World Championship.

Arvind Iyengar - View Profile.