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The Kirsten manual for Team India, on 'how you don't need a partner if you have a good hand' - something that bridge players have known for ages - has intriguing possibilities. Right now it's just a little hand-holding, and visualising, to get the players into the flow of things. The theory is that 'solo sex' will get testosterone levels so high that the young men in blue will score on the cricket field too. In other words, 'if you can't get a quick 50, go jack off'. But what coach Kirsten and team psycho Paddy Upton may not have figured out yet is the full dimension of their proposal. Rahul Dravid, for instance, is usually the slowest to get off the mark on a pitch. But in bed? Could there possibly be a correlation between scoring rates on and off the field? Will Kirsten be keeping an eye on who is the last to make it to the team bus? So it looks like there's one more player stat in the coming... er, making. Anyway, if Kirsten has equally good ideas about what to do with a cricket bat, Team India will surely be on top.

Listening to first Gary Kirsten and then MS Dhoni trotting out one excuse after another for the pathetic show in England would have you believe that this Indian team had no chance at all in the T20 World Cup. So, were the players fatigued after the IPL, were some of them carrying injuries or niggles, and had some of the batsmen suddenly lost their form?
Obviously, there's some truth in all those claims, but it's not the whole truth. The fact is it would be very convenient for the coach and captain if those were to be seen as the real reasons why India did so badly. But the hypothesis falls flat as soon as you subject it to a little scrutiny.
On a Trent Bridge pitch, where spinners had caused havoc in previous matches, India chose to deploy a three-pronged pace attack. Between the three of them, they bowled just six overs and even those were too many. It's elementary that at least one of them could have made way for an extra batsman (Dinesh Karthick) or a specialist spinner (Pragyan Ojha).
Dhoni and Kirsten consistently got the team selection badly wrong right through the tournament. RP Singh, the best bowler in the IPL, was kept out until the last two matches, and he was predictably the best seamer as soon as he finally came in.
India had the best lot of part-time bowlers in the tournament - Yusuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina. But the point about having batsmen who can bowl is that the team can then afford to have depth in its batting. The advantage is totally lost if the team is packed with five specialist bowlers as Kirsten and Dhoni chose to do match after match. In fact, the absence of Sehwag made it even more imperative to pack the side with as many batsmen as possible.
So, did fatigue have something to do with the thoughtless planning in evidence? We don't know what inputs Gary Kirsten gave, but quite apparent was the team think tank's poor judgement in selection and the way it went about the chase against England, allowing the required run rate to climb out of reach while the whole contingent of power-hitters cooled its heels in the dugout.
Injuries, fatigue and burnout are a given in modern-day cricket and all the teams are complaining of it. But if you look at the specifics, there's no way the team leadership can hide behind that fig leaf.
Sehwag was undoubtedly a big loss, but Dinesh Karthick was a good replacement given his form in the IPL where he had a couple of match-winning knocks for Delhi. So why was Karthick not given a single game? Shouldn't he have been the natural replacement for Sehwag instead of the fifth specialist bowler? Why, Karthick could also have given Dhoni a break if he was feeling fatigued.
And then there's the lament about our pace spearhead Zaheer Khan who picked up a shoulder injury during the IPL, didn't play for a while, and was a shadow of his usual self in the World Cup. Tch, tch, tch!
Aren't we overlooking Praveen Kumar, who was one of the top bowlers in the IPL where he played a big part in getting Bangalore into the finals? In fact, he did much better than Zaheer Khan in South Africa and I suspect he would've revelled in English conditions with his seam bowling. He didn't get a single game and I'm sure he's neither fatigued nor injured, just pissed off.
Blaming the batting is also a cop-out if you think about it. None of the teams have posted extravagant totals because there's been a bit in the pitch for the bowlers - seamers at Lord's and spinners at Trent Bridge.
India lost to South Africa because they were allowed to post a half decent total on a difficult pitch after being on the mat. Letting them get there and failing to chase it down was primarily the fault of wrong team selection.
India lost to England and the West Indies primarily because of Jadeja's 25 in 35 balls and Dhoni's 11 in 23 balls in the middle overs. This was more wrong strategy, than poor batting form.
It's really thinking and planning that let India down more than fitness or batting. Dhoni should acknowledge this, instead of being in denial, because that's the best way to move forward and start correcting the faults.
Another thing he perhaps needs to think about is why he alone has been left carrying the can. What is Gary Kirsten's contribution to the team apart from finding lame duck excuses? What is his claim to fame as a coach? Is he the best the board can get? Why not proven hands instead - like Darren Lehman who helped first Jaipur and then Hyderabad to become IPL winners, or Shane Warne the wizard of Jaipur, or the old favourite Dav Whatmore who transformed first Sri Lanka and then Bangladesh?
Perhaps the board prefers a yes-man than a coach with good ideas. I suppose in that case Indian fans will just have to put up with watching teams with great talent being inconsistent and under-performing.

In post-match interviews, Dhoni said he sent Ravinder Jadeja out to bat ahead of Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan and himself, to stabilise the innings after the loss of two early wickets. The asking rate going up to 10 around the 10th over is no problem for the lower middle order of the Indian batting, according to him.
To me this is more worrying than India's early exit from the World Cup. Dhoni may have just been rationilising some of his blunders. But it could also mean that he has learnt little from the back-to-back defeats against the West Indies and England.
What is the point of "stabilising" the innings and then forcing the next few batsmen to start scoring at 10 plus an over from the word go, without the benefit of a few balls to get set? This is guaranteed to make India fall short, whether chasing or setting a target, nine times out of ten.
Against the West Indies, it was Dhoni himself who played the sheet anchor much like Jadeja. He scored 11 runs in 23 balls. This meant India could only get up to a modest score in spite of a dream innings of 67 in half the number of balls by Yuvraj. Again, against England, India failed to get to an ordinary target in spite of Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan going great guns and remaining unbeaten at the end. And there are others like Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan whose pinch-hitting abilities remain unutilised in this business of "stabilising" the innings.
Losing two or three early wickets in the first six overs as the batsmen have a go at the bowling to exploit the field restrictions is nothing new in T20. That doesn't mean you pull the shutters down and play for singles for the next 8 overs. What you should do instead is to keep in touch with the asking rate even if it means taking a chance and losing more wickets. The chances of getting bowled out in a T20 game are much lower compared to the chances of collapsing when you have to go at 10 plus an over.
And it's not just in the World Cup that Dhoni has adopted this keeping-wickets-in-hand policy. He did it in the IPL in South Africa, which proved to be Chennai's undoing. Dhoni is basically not using his batting resources because of a defensive mindset. This is not how he played the first World Cup. So, one can only surmise that too much experience of T20 cricket has not been good for him. He was better when he went by his aggressive instinct. Or, perhaps coach Gary Kirsten is the one to grill about our faulty strategy, not to mention the poor team selection.

To begin with, Dhoni should abandon the sheet anchor role he has adopted of late. He left Chennai high and dry after taking 29 balls for 28 runs in the IPL semi-final and then getting out. He did the same against the West Indies. There’s no point keeping so many wickets in hand for the last four overs, because one low-scoring over out of those will upset such calculations. It's after all, a 20-over game, and I don't remember the Indian team pulling its shutters down every time a few early wickets fell in the first World Cup.
Second - play the in-form RP Singh, highest wicket-taker in the just-concluded IPL, in place of Ishant Sharma, who seems caught betwixt attack and defence in T20 cricket, and has been a flop for Kolkata too. Ishant needs to go flat out with the new ball keeping two slips in place. But, for now, since that's not something they've worked out yet, it's best for him to be a spectator.
Third - play Dinesh Karthick, a prolific scorer of late for Delhi, instead of Irfan Pathan, who is cannon fodder at his pace, and has been no great shakes with the bat either recently. The full complement of seven batsman will allow natural strokemakers like Dhoni to play without fear of a batting collapse. After all it's Virender Sehwag who's missing, one of our best hitters. Why should a bowler take his place?
Dhoni said at the start of the tournament that part-time bowlers like Yusuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma (all of whom were great successes in the IPL) would play a key role. So then, drop the extra bowler and use them. Yuvraj, Raina and Rohit have hardly got an over yet because we're playing so many bowlers. For some inexplicable reason India keeps disturbing its team composition of six batsmen, wicket-keeper and four bowlers to play the extra bowler and it almost never works.
Finally, it would be best for Dhoni to take bowling if he wins the toss, because in the current pusillanimous frame of mind he is in, India is more likely to underachieve while batting first, or over-correct and commit harakiri.

Dhoni can be faulted for a number of things - such as his strange tactics these days to come one down and play the sheet anchor in T20 - but to attack him for bristling at being saddled with an injured Sehwag from the very outset of India's campaign to defend the World Cup shows how thoughtless the cricket media can be. In the rush to do the 'big story', the wrong story is pursued.
The real story is why Sehwag let his team down by going along on such an important tour despite being unfit to bat - and we're talking T20 where you have to keep slogging. Did he not disclose his injury or did the BCCI allow him to go anyway? What was the physiotherapist doing? And when Sehwag could not play in the practice matches before the tournament due to injury, why did the team manager not give that information out to the media to scotch any speculation over why Rohit Sharma was taking Sehwag's place?
These were the questions that should have immediately been raised. Instead, a speculative story was put out about this big fight between Dhoni and Sehwag which had resulted in Rohit Sharma usurping Sehwag's place. So here was Dhoni being forced not just to cope with a last minute change in the top order, but also to come out with a dramatic demonstration of team unity. And to criticise Dhoni for not being open with the media betrays a strange naivete from sports journalists who are well aware of the bureaucratic and autocratic ways of the Indian cricket board.
Dhoni's task is difficult enough. He has a lot of good teams to contend with. T20 has been around for a while and the gap is very narrow between the top teams. On top of that, he has to live with an inefficient team manager and board. But instead of being sensitive to this, and strengthening his hand by exposing the dubious ways in which injured players get on the bandwagon, the media attacks the captain.
That Dhoni has managed to achieve so much in so short a time is in fact doubly creditable, given these extraneous games that he has to play. Apart from dealing with players who hide their injuries - something that afflicts India more than other teams because of the huge monetary stakes involved - there is the perennial negotiation with selectors which brings another level of complexity. Before the Sehwag affair, there was the reported falling out between Dhoni and chief selector Krish Srikkanth over the team for the World Cup. Dhoni was denied the services of Dinesh Kaarthick, and ironically enough it is Kaarthick who is replacing Sehwag.
In all these political games, one can lose focus on the things that really matter - the team composition, the tactics and the team spirit. So if Dhoni has been losing his cool at being grilled by the media, he has every reason for it. It's the BCCI and Sehwag (and Maybe Zaheer Khan) who should be grilled, not him. In fact, that's the broad hint he gave the media. But nobody got it, or chose not to. The juicier - and easier - line to take is Dhoni-baiting.
So how will this affect India's chances? Undoubtedly, there's a lot more unnecessary pressure and distraction that Dhoni and his men have to handle as compared to the other teams. But you never know - it might also help to bind the team and make them come out fighting against both the persecution and their opponents. Something like that happened in Australia when Dhoni refused to accommodate the seniors from the Test team in his one-day side. It was as though the young team had a point to prove, which it did by winning the triseries. Let's hope the media again unwittingly helps fire up Dhoni.