Team India has been on the receiving end of severe criticism by fans and experts of the game for their performance in the recently concluded World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand in Southampton.
In both the innings of the high-voltage contest, no Indian batsman was able to hit a half-century. Despite having a star-studded batting line-up consisting of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh Pant, Indian stroke makers did not manage to dominate the Kiwi pace attack.
Rahane with 49 and Kohli with 44 in the first innings were the highest run-scorer for India. Although the bowlers did a pretty good job in the first innings, but they failed to impress in the second essay while defending 139 runs.
Ever since India lost the WTC final, many pundits have been dropping their analysis concerning what really went wrong for Team India. The latest to join the bandwagon is former Australian cricketer Michael Bevan.
Bevan shared a post on his official Instagram handle and revealed three reasons behind lacklustre performance in the summit clash. Bevan reckoned that one of the prime cause behind India’s disappointing show was the lack of match practice in the English conditions.
Notably, India played only an intra-squad practice match before the final. On the other hand, New Zealand faced England in the two-match Test series right before the mega event.
Comes to the second reason, the 51-year-old asserted that the playing conditions in England suited the Black Caps bowling attack much more than Indian bowlers. The likes of Kyle Jamieson, Trent Boult, and Tim Southee got much more help from the surface, and they utilised it pretty well.
For the third and final reason, Bevan opined that playing on the last day put extra pressure on Indian batters, and Kohli and Co. had options of the only draw or lose the game.
“Preparation; India were short of match practice in English conditions. 2. Conditions; suited NZ swing bowlers more than the India bowlers. 3. Situation; heading into the last day, India could only draw or lose, putting extra pressure on their batsmen,” Bevan wrote on his Instagram post.
