India was knocked out of the T20 World Cup after an embarrassing 10-wicket defeat in the semi-final round against England at the Adelaide Oval. The Indian cricket team, who was once a force to be reckoned with after their sensation win in the 2007 T20 World Cup, 2011 ODI World Cup, and 2013 Champions Trophy, have failed time and again to win ICC tournaments for nearly a decade now.
But this isn’t the first time that the Indian cricket team has choked in the knockout stages. Team India previously lost the final of the 2014 T20 World Cup before losing the World Cup semifinals in 2015, 2016, 2019, and 2022. Besides this, team India lost the finals of the 2017 Champions Trophy and the World Test Championship in 2021.
On Thursday, during the must-win semi-final match against England, Indian players failed badly once again. KL Rahul failed in yet another important match, while Rohit Sharma managed only 27 off 28 balls. Virat Kohli took 40 balls to get 50 at a strike rate of 125. Hardik Pandya gave a major boost to the Indian side with his sensational knock of 63 off 33 balls.
However, Jos Buttler and Alex Hales started strongly with India bowlers having no answer to their sensational innings and defended the target of 168 runs easily.
Meanwhile, after the Indian side was knocked out of the T20 World Cup 2022, former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar said the team always froze in knockout matches. He r said India was let down by the batting department in a crunch game.
Speaking to Star Sports, Gavaskar said: “I just think India seem to freeze in these knockout games… particularly with the batting and it is the batting which has been the strength of the Indian team,”
He added: “In the semifinals, the batting has not been as good as it should be. Obviously, at this stage, you are going to get much better bowling attacks than maybe the group stages and that’s understandable. But the batting really hasn’t got the runs that the bowlers can defend,”
