Is it time for T20 specialists?

One more World Twenty20 and one more failed campaign. The growing perception seems to be that the 2007 victory was just a fluke. India have the world’s best T20 league in the form of IPL and yet they don’t have the players suited for the format. We don’t exactly seem to cut an intimidating sight on a T20 field. The team is just about average.

Is it time to go for a specialist Twenty20 team? Let’s leave that for the managers of the game in the country. Australia, Pakistan, England have customised T20 teams, and captains. Even South Africa has a captain who is a specialist in limited-overs cricket. In India we have two T20 tournaments — IPL and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy — and yet we can’t field 15 exponents of the format. Clearly, the focus of the BCCI seems to be on the IPL and its riches more than on forming a formidable T20 national team.

The immediate issue that needs addressing is whether seniors like Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag fit into the T20 scheme of things. With suspect fitness records, they are huge liabilities with their fielding. And their bowling and batting are not exactly moving mountains. It is time the selectors sorted out this matter.

As for the tournament in Sri Lanka, it was a disaster on all fronts. MS Dhoni & Co toyed with their fans’ emotions and expectations to the point of cruelty. Limp-wristed bowling and butter-fingered fielding... it was pre-ordained that the team was not going to go too far in the tournament.

Adding to the misery was the lop-sided strategy. One wondered if our think-tank are clerks in a horticulture office. They went with three pacers in the crucial match against South Africa on a pitch that helped Pakistan’s four-pronged spin attack beat Australia. Mr Fletcher, could you please explain the efficacy of the formation of a three-man pace battery?

India were also done in by the format of the tournament. Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan have entered the semifinals winning four of the five games they played. India, too, have won as many but could not make the cut. The cruel irony is that the West Indies have won only two of their five games and yet made the grade. Surely, somewhere something is wrong with the format but that is not to blame for India’s early elimination.