In the wake of India's early exit from the Cricket World Cup 2007 here I present a critical analysis of why and how India were out, and then also presented is an in-depth prescription of an "11-member" possible solution (including a 12th man!) to save cricket in India.
After the thrashing defeat to their neighbouring islanders on Friday, the 23rd March 2007, it appears to be now almost certain that India will have to take an early exit from this edition of the World Cup. This has created utter disappointment and anger to the millions of Indians and it is now high time to take some strong action so that we do not go through the same situation again in the next World Cup. Let us first analyse how India were out of the tournament.
· Dravid won the toss in his first World Cup match as captain and decided to bat first in a pitch which had a lot of support to the bowlers. There was moisture and Virender Sehwag who was completely out of form and under enormous pressure for his place in the team, was sent to open with the in-form Ganguly. He got out cheaply and then comes another mistake by the captain. A young Uthappa, who never played outside Indian soil against an International team, was sent only to see him out soon. Thus, two batsmen were wasted by Dravid, whereas in such damp conditions Dravid himself should have come to open or at least after Sehwag got out, as Dravid has the technique and experience to face such situation. So both the decision to bat first and sending Sehwag/ Uthappa were wrong.
· While fielding, again Dravid made a big mistake by opening the bowling with Khan and Agarkar. It should have been Munaf instead of Agarkar as he has the pace. Then since it was obvious during India%u2019s batting that the Bangladeshi spinners bowled really well, one does not need to be genius to bring the spinners as soon as possible since the pacers were unable to give breakthroughs. His field placements were also awful, and any suggestions from the seniors like Ganguly were ignored (quite a disappointing scene to watch). Bowling changes were not right and the fielding was even worse. Dravid, Sehwag and Dhoni all had dropped catches in such a crucial match. You can%u2019t win matches if you drop catches and that too when you are defending a total of 191. However, it is worth noting that for Bangladesh 191 should have been a difficult target, as they do not normally score in excess of 150 runs in ODI matches against the test playing nations. But poor captaincy, untidy fielding and lack of self-belief have cost the match to India.
· Against Bermuda, they did really well despite loosing their opener Uthappa who can consider himself very lucky to have played in all three of the world cup matches without having his presence felt in the scorecard. I can%u2019t remember
