India's ICC T20 world cup debacle raises several questions

It has been a very disappointing ICC world T20 for India. Cricket has become a cult or religion for most youngsters and even elderly. There is so much of money,glamour,media glitz, controversy and politics ... you name it and that keeps big money spinning all round the year.Our player are by far the most highly paid sports people in the world. To me it looks as though it is coming too much too early for the younsgters and they are not capable to cope up and rise to the occassion to perform for the country in top tournaments. We have seen that in last ICC world cup,ICC T20 world cup to name a few. There is no learning from the mistakes of past.

For a country of 1 Billion plus with such huge fan following, it is a big let down by the players. The captainship in Super-8 stage was abysmal and unpardonable,so was team selection and execution of game strategy. The so called top ranked team in Tests and 2nd in ODIs proved to be very ordinary in-front of so called laggards like WI and Sril Lanka who on paper do not have star studded line-up and they get paid far less than Indian players and also the poor guys do not have much endorsement money either. I dont know why players like Jadeja, Pathan who have very consisitent poor performance getting place in final playing eleven? Even Murlai Vijay was very ordinary and unfit for this stage though he was brilliant at IPL.The big names like Gambhir, Yuvraj,Dhoni himself,Kartik all proved ineffective against real pace and bouncy wickets. Simply speaking they all need to work hard to come up with top performance at international stage. IPL itinerary is also to blame for this poor performance as Dhoni said in media but that is a lame excuse.

Except for Pakistan, all major teams had their key pleyers playing at IPL and some of them even had very tight schedule back home before joing IPL. That way all of them had same fatigue factor or so. But Australians proved once again what professionalism and commitment means. They are shoulders above all teams. England has also shown very improved and consistent performance beating all odds.

Our cricket team needs to work in following areas on urgent basis:
1. Right team selection (not based on past laurels alone but actual calibre for the format)
2. Good bench strength to fall back when major names fail
3. Rigorous SWOT analysis of players to identify weak areas and strenghten those
4. Killer instinct and aggressiveness on ground
5. Early planning and application of simulated training sessions for the team that matches actual conditions of major tournaments (like bouncy wickets, rain disturbed games, rising deliveries etc)
6. Game strategy and its execution and holding the nerves in crunch moments (clear all out action plan for final overs)
7. Bowling in right areas (disciplined approach)- no straying please
8. Improvements in fielding- a lot to learn from Australians and South Africans

My point is , if you are getting highest paid then you must perfom the best in the world. But you are not performing even 2nd or 3rd best in international tournaments and that's not acceptable.
Hope BCCI is listening and seeing these comments of a sincere Indian. This is not a criticizing note but an eye opener because I think Indian cricket team needs to work as a matter of urgency on above areas if they want to keep our heads held high as a nation. Jai Hind !