End of Campaign

Quick conclusions from the ongoing T20 WC in West-Indies:

1. No lessons learnt from the last WC. Batsmen were outdone by pace in two matches of three in the Super Eight stage.
   
2. Dhoni found it easier to go after Irfan Pathan, VRV Singh, Juan Theron, Chawla and Sunny Sohal of KXIP than going after Perera, Thushara and Malinga. Very obvious, IPL can't give us the quality that the international stage can.
3. Yusuf Pathan played a total of 33 balls in four innings this series and made 42 runs of no value. It took four balls more to score a century not very long ago, Warne branded this the best century he'd seen. A look at his international record says he is nowhere close to last enough balls forget scoring enough runs.
   
4. Sehwag was missed. Where was he? Oh! He was giving his 100% for Delhi Daredevils so much so that he injured himself. It's okay! After all the franchise paid him a lot of money.
5. Gambhir and Yuvraj were out of form. Sure they will have carry some blame but if heads were to roll it better not be them for they are proven performers on foreign and home conditions.
6. Earlier Indian teams have fared badly, sure it's happened. Whenever we fared badly earlier I felt that a strong team had let us down, look at the teams that played the 1999 and 2007 ODI WCs. This time I feel a weak team is taking the field for India. Gambhir, Dhoni, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and Zaheer (didn't play all matches) were the only proven peformers from India. The rest were either untested or yet-to-prove-themselves players.
7. It seems like India has two cricket teams playing for it. On one hand MSD is leading the T20 team which has not fared well in a long time. On the other, the same individual leads the test team currently ranked number one. Ironcially last minute series arrangements are being made to maintain that number one status while second-grade players pose as stars and enjoy a long T20 season.

I'm glad "cricketainment" season is over. C'mon Sri-Lanka, Australia and New-Zealand! We have a number one tag to retain!