Did India get tossed out of the T20 World Cup

Now that India is officially out of the T20 World Cup, I wanted to put my thoughts on what according to me went wrong. 

    It will not be wrong to say that we got tossed out of this world cup.

Toss is so crucial in Dubai. 9 out of 10 games were won by the teams chasing. The 10^th one would        have been so too but Scotland lacked the experience in both batting and bowling and lost to NZ only by 16 runs. Take a look at the 10 games in Dubai with the yellow highlight showing the only exception

Also look at the number of overs taken to chase the target. That shows something is incorrect as the sides playing first are not minnows and include Australia, WI, India and Bangladesh (Yes I don't consider Bangladesh as Minnows any longer)

Game # in Dubai	1ST INNINGS	2ND INNINGS	Winner	Overs to Chase
Game 10	Scotland	India	India	6.3
Game 9	Bangladesh	Aus	Aus	6.2
Game 8	NZ	Scotland	NZ	16 runs
Game 7	India	NZ	NZ	14.3
Game 6	Aus	Eng	Eng	11.4
Game 5	Af	Pak	Pak	19
Game 4	SL	Aus	Aus	17
Game 3	WI	SA	SA	18.2
Game 2	India	Pak	Pak	17.5
Game 1	WI	Eng	Eng	8.2

2.                  What else went wrong for India?

1. India had 2 wrong calls – Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Rahul Chahar – Both were off color in the IPL and did not deserve to be in the team based on present form. Harshal Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal should have made the cut – I am not rooting for RCB but these 2 players warranted a place even though it meant taking a newcomer for the T20 World Cup. Venkatesh Iyer vs Hardik Pandya was another thought but given Hardik started to bowl from the 2^nd game and Iyer is an opener, this is a difficult case for him to have made his case as-is

2. It would have helped India to meet some of the smaller teams before meeting Pakistan and NZ. India had to get the team composition right and starting with Pak and NZ didnt help

 Did India make an error by choosing Ishan Kishan to open for the NZ game.

Many experts called this an error. Having a left-right combination at the top was needed. Having 4 top order right handers and 3 left handers then would allow oppositions to plan the match up easily. The surprise element with Ishan would have been appreciated by everybody had Ishan stayed for another 2-3 overs. I think it was the right call making us think why leave out Shikar Dhawan in the first place but it is so hard to ignore KL Rahul after his IPL show

      What next for 2022 T20 World Cup?

India need Pace Bowling allrounders, a leg spinner and a left arm pace bowler given the world cup will happen in Australia in a year’s time. We need batsman who can roll their arm as well – Iam impressed with the English team’s balance. We will need around 8 bowling options in the 11 and bat deep till 9-10.

Pace Bowlers : It is time to start looking at Natarajan, Jaydev Unadkat, Harshal Patel, Umran Malik, Shivam Mavi, Avesh Khan for the pace bowling slots along with Shami and Bumrah. Bhuvaneshwar and Deepak Chahar should contribute more with Seam bowling for a place in the side.

Medium Pace Allrounders : Venky Iyer and Shivam Dube for the pace allrounder slots along with Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur – we need more – are their others that need to be considered

Spinner Allrounders : For the spin allrounder’s slot, we need Ravi Jadeja, Axar Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Washington Sundar – Ravi Ashwin should start contributing more with the bat to get into this slot than play in the spinner slot below. He really belongs to this category

Spinners : Spinners will include Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, Varun Chakravarthy, Mayank Markhande if his fitness improves

Batters : Look at Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Shikar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul in addition to Kohli and Rohit Sharma

There need not be separate Wicket Keepers as there are 3 options within the Batters who can fill this role. There are no tours to ANZ during this period - India will do well to use this year's IPL and the series with NZ, West Indies, South Africa, Sri Lanka, England, Australia as preps. 

Finally, Kudos to Virat and Ravi Shastri in setting the right processes to take this Indian team to where they are - This team deserves to achieve more things in the coming year

Rahul Dravid has his task cut out. Continuing with Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a Mentor should help given Dhoni's experience with the T20 format. It will be interesting to see who will lead India in this T20 world cup - I would expect Rohit to take over the team captaincy. Remains to be seen how BCCI approaches this format with the new set of leaders coming into play