India look to sign off on positive note against Namibia in damp squib with an eye on future

Mohammad Abdullah, Senior Sports Reporter
 
An out-going India will look to sign off on a positive note against perennial makeweights Namibia in a damp squib of the T20 World Cup on Monday. New Zealand ended Afghanistan’s campaign and India’s hopes at the showpiece event with a thumping eight-wicket victory on Sunday.

India, who lost both their opening matches against Pakistan and New Zealand, were hoping for Afghanistan to pull off an upset win against Kiwis and keep the race for the semi-finals wide open until the last game.

Indian fans were also rooting for Afghanistan as they changed their social media profile picture to Afghanistan flag. But a ruthless New Zealand trampled over a billion hopes to send the hosts packing by beating Afghanistan.

After two straight losses, India were pushed on the back foot right from the beginning which left them needing to win remaining three matches and the other results to go their way.

This is India’s worst finish in the World Cup in any format of the game. India have never been out of the tournament before the knock-out stage begins since long.

India are generally not seen playing in the dead rubber in an ICC tournament. The last time they played such a match was against South Africa in 1992 World Cup in Australia.

India have never been out of any ICC tourney before the semi-finals since 2013. They lifted the Champions Trophy in 2013 and finished runners-up in T20 World Cup in 2014 and also managed to play the semi-final of 2015, 50-over World Cup before going on to win the Asia Cup in 2018 under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma in the UAE.

India also played the semi-final of T20 World Cup in 2016 before going on to lose the final of the Champions Trophy against arch -rivals Pakistan in 2017 when Fakhar Zaman scored a century.

They had an impressive finish to their 2019 50-over World Cup campaign in England where they were the semi-finalists. India also lost to New Zealand in the final of the World Test Championship.

Kohli has awful record as a captain both in IPL and with the national team. He has never won any major cup as the captain of Indian team and nor an IPL crown.

However, it is all passe now and an India-Namibia much-hyped clash has been reduced to a dead rubber.  Both Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri will step down after the World Cup which will mark the beginning of a new era for the Indian cricket.

Kohli had announced before the World Cup that he would relinquish captaincy after the showpiece event and Indian legend Rahul Dravid has been announced as new coach by the BCCI.

Both Shastri and Kohli would not have hoped for an awful end to their innings after ruling with an iron fist for many years. Rumours are rife that Kohli might lose ODI captaincy as well. Indian bowling coach Bharat Arun blamed the toss for their early exit.

“I am not making excuse but the trend has been in this World Cup that the team batting second has won most of the times. The conditions became very easy in the later-half of the game to bat,” said Arun in a pre-match conference.

“Toss should not be of any consequence and here toss played very vital role. It gave unfair advantage to the team batting second,” he added.

Perhaps he forgot that India posted the highest total of the tournament against Afghanistan batting first. With the next edition of the event just 11 months away, India will look to start afresh under new captain and a new coach. They will look to turn over new leaf and script the new success story with a different set-up.

Dravid, who has won many matches for India as a batsman, is expected to live up to the expectations of people in his new role as well.