Over the last two days, I have seen a lot of posts on social media which say that India ran Australia close. That India played well, and it was just nine runs that separated the two teams. Some have said that it was luck that India did not have on their side. We were gallant losers.
The truth is there is seldom anything gallant in defeat. India did not make the semi-finals, and that’s the harsh reality. Competing isn’t enough. Against New Zealand, India did not even compete. Individual runs in a losing cause don’t matter, for it is the collective that has failed. Even if Harmanpreet Kaur did not score and India won, it would have been okay. But the skipper scoring a fifty and yet against ending up on the losing side isn’t acceptable.
This isn’t the first time either. In the 2017 [50-over] World Cup final, India lost by 9 runs. In 2018, India thrashed Australia and New Zealand in the group stage of the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean before subsiding meekly against England in the semi-final. In the final in 2020, Australia completely outplayed India. In Birmingham, in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, India lost by 9 runs in the final yet again. In 2023 in South Africa, they fell short by 5 runs in the semi-finals.
In 2024, India did not make it out of the group stage itself. Clearly, there is a pattern. India doesn’t really know how to win, and are satisfied with having competed. Happy to see a fifty or a five-for when none of it matters if the result goes against the team. Soon after he had missed out in Rio by the tiniest of margins, Abhinav Bindra, clearly a once-in-a-generation athlete, had said to me with a lot of sarcasm: “Now, you will celebrate me bigger. We in India love 4th place finishes. Perhaps they are more celebrated than even a gold medal. It is about getting close in India. So what if we don’t win a medal?”
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Only he could have come up with such a quip at a moment like that. Bindra, the hardest taskmaster and perfectionist I know, had yet again hit bullseye. Fighting is good, but it isn’t good enough for a podium finish. For the longest time, Indians refused to accept this and were satisfied with having performed decently.
This is an India where our cricketers get the top training facilities. They have the best coaches and mental trainers, proper nutrition and diet, and every bit of sports science they need to excel at the international level. Finally, we are seeing systems emerge and structures being put in place. And yet, we see the same mistakes being made, which have cost us dear.
In women’s cricket, we have seen a disconnect with Team India. If the skipper has delivered, like in the case of Harmanpreet, the vice-captain and the other batters have fallen short. Smriti Mandhana is a case in point. And what has left us troubled is how the players aren’t touching their personal bests on the big stage. This World Cup was a case study in that regard and, may I say, it is a real cause for worry.
For us, going forward, it is about hunger and determination. Not to fall short of a final. Going out in the group stage is a disaster. We need to get on the podium each time we compete. Try and make it happen more often. That’s what we will need from this team in the future. The only way to salvage something is to learn from the mistakes, and not be happy as gallant losers.
Also Read: Without honest introspection, India can’t move forward from this World Cup debacle