[harry10]

Originally Posted by Eddy

To make the job of fantasy game players easier.

You maybe on to something

Originally Posted by NPV

And Williamson unlikely to play due to injury.

I'm guessing he could be back in the team by the time NZ play India though

Didn't know Williamson is injured. He is like kohli for NZ who holds the game together. Big miss. Pak anyways are favourite after yesterday's heroics.

Originally Posted by msdivy

I do not find fault with team selection except Kohli found a way to include his buddy Hardik Pandya, who seem to carry an injury. So he can't bowl, his fielding, batting skills have dropped. There are others in top form who deserve a place in playing 11 than Pandya.

The probable reason why India lost was preparation. In the last 4 years, India has played just 3 matches (all ODIs) against Pakistan. No T20Is, no tests. India were facing Shaheen Afridi for the first in T20s. Indian batters failed to come to terms with the Pakistan attack. No one was able to pick the slow ones. In contrast, Pakistan must have watched plenty of IPL footage to assess the strengths & weaknesses of Indian batsmen. They bowled according to plan and it worked.
India is the host country. So they must have fixed the date & time which suits them.

You got a point. As we don't play Pakistan much we weren't use to of playing against them and maybe in hindsight batters should have taken Shaheen more seriously. Also, host country doesn't decides the game schedule. It's completely upto ICC to decide grounds and fixtures.

It's a game. We played bad, we lost. End of story. Happens to every team. Move on.

I will see the positives. Kohli is back to his form and natural role. Pant looks in very good touch. Rohit, KL got great balls to dismiss otherwise they are in form too. Sky needs to tighten his game if he wants to be a permanent. His shot yesterday was really bad to get out at a crucial point. He is a game changer and just need to put more value on his wicket.

For game against NZ. Play Thakur for Hardik, Ash for Bhuvi/Shami. Spin has proved to be more effective in UAE than pace so no harm playing 3 spinners. Plus Ash and Varun can bowl well in powerplays.*We need 6 proper bowling options in every match. Period.

Side note. That's obscene amount of money for new IPL teams. Hopefully BCCI can provide better facilities in stadiums with all this moolah.*

[mnram]

Originally Posted by redCherry

He's a very over-rated player, who usually ends up with 1 or 2 impactful innings like a flash in the pan, and then the captain keeps playing him for next 10-15 matches on the basis of that 1-2 innings.

He can't bat against good pace bowling, which most likely he would be facing in the ODIs or T20Is considering his batting order, and now that he can't even bowl, I don't understand how he could be in the playing 11.

100% on point. He is yet to recover and including him in the team did not make any sense for me. I personally feel that the new star of KKR - Venkatesh Iyer would have made more of an impact and just before the start, have send him back.

[FHW]

Rightly said by @Oxy. "Obsession with experience and seniority needs to end."

Also PAK played well in the match and won.

Winning and losing is a part of game. Losing tests and helps in growth. It is only temporary and not all encompassing.

In the previous losses with India, PAK, I think learnt from it and tried not to loose the same way again.

Best of luck to all for future matches, may the better team win.

[dsuman]

What we are forgetting is the Dew Factor had a major role to play. While India was batting the ball was doing just a little bit along with occasionally stopping on the Batsman. I am not taking anything from Pakistani Batsmen or the Bowlers. Believe me guys it is really not easy with a wet ball. The ball came onto the bat really easily.

I am sure one or two early wickets would have set the cat among pigeons and even if they had won, it would not have been this flamboyant. Pakistan did not run away with the game till 11 Overs. They too were playing cautious and knew a wicket or two would open up the game.

Its only hurting because it is a India - Pakistan Match and we wanted the Win record to stay at 100%.

[varoon9999]

More so, it was a good lesson that was taught to us by befitting performance by Pakistani batsmen. Apparently we were over confident and turned complacent knowing that we have done wonders in IPL. Playing in IPL and playing an ICC tournament is poles apart. Performance in IPL shouldn't be a sole parameter to pick up a player in final squad. Also carrying an old baggage (unfit) doesn't make any sense in high adrenaline event like this, I wonder why team mgmt. is clinging on to such players.

After every failure success comes. Hopefully we learn from mistakes and don't look back from here and bring the cup home !!

[amods]

I know the excitement we have going into an India-Pak Match, but it's just a game - not the war that we will win everytime.

I vividly remember the post match presentation from a previous world cup match win when Dhoni was the captain(can't remember exact date of it), He said(not the exact words), "We won today, but we WILL lose to them in future. It's not like that we will always keep winning". Here's a link to it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZq8jTojHrs

There will always be some mistake to point on team selection or strategy et al. My point is - we should move on and accept a bad day. We've had 12 good ones earlier and will have more in future - good or bad.

[m8002?]

More than the loss, many people are disappointed in the way we lost it.
If the match was a close one, then there would not have been so much discussion on it.

But however bad the defeat, the kind of venom spewing in the social media against certain players is really sad.

[AllisWell]

Here we go again. The Kohli bashing begins!! The entire top order fails, bowling department fails and who do we blame? The one man who managed to score a 50 plus total when wickets kept falling on the opposite side.

Toss was a very important factor and it just didn't go our way. Dew came in and it made all the more difficult for our bowlers to get any sort of a break-through.

For those of you blaming Kohli for team selection, He won't be the only one doing it. You all have your head coach, mentor weighing in on it and they went with what was considered the best team on the day. Mistakes happen, it's a sport.

If we don't support our team on a bad day, then we have absolutely no freaking right to celebrate their victories. We had a very good run against PAK and they outdid us in all departments and put on a fantastic show. Give credits where it's due and move on.

As for blaming the players and bashing Kohli for his poor captaincy, a captain is only as good as his team. Everyone needs to back him up with their contributions. It's easy to say everything in hindsight after the match is done. They are professionals playing in a extremely high pressure tournament so either we can support them or we can stay away from it. Bringing in more negativity is not going to help anyone.

[Turbo_Lawyer]

I do not get it how the Captain should be credited or blamed for any result. Yes, there is due process involved and he/she is the one involved in major decision making. But at the end of the day, even the most in-form player will have a bad day and can screw it up in the most crucial junctures of a match.

The Indian Team is playing non-stop cricket going from bubble to bubble. Although, they have their families along with them now, it's not as easy as we armchair cricket experts believe it to be. Fatigue sets in and it does affect the mentality of the players translating to hiccups in their performance. Look at Pakistan, they looked so fresh with no cricket being played recently(partly due to cancellations by the ECB and the New Zealand Cricket Board)

We've always been reactionary fans, especially in Cricket. And the overconfidence, fueled by the broadcaster's "Mauka Mauka" campaign, finally got to us. Thankfully, I think we will not be seeing such juvenile promotions anymore.

Now, to the game itself, Shaheen Shah Afridi simply dismantled our top order. Once your main batters are out for cheap, you really do not have a choice. Here's a very interesting article on how he makes it a habit to pick up wickets in the first over. They have one of the best all-format batsman in Babar Azam and it came as no surprise that they did well. I hope we do not go on underestimating such a talented team in the future.

Coming to all the fire to Kohli for the team selection, are we as naive to believe that the Vice-Captain, the "Mentor" and the Coach have no say in it? Funny observation : Right before the match, cameras were only focused on the "Mentor" with everyone gushing around the Pre-Match show that his presence is enough to make India win and they are now even more powerfully equipped. Cut to the loss, the "Mentor" was not being as much hyped as before and other than a few shots of him with the Pakistani players, not much was discussed about him.

About time we realized a match cannot be won by ONE man. It's a team game and will always remain so.

[arunramaswamy]

Originally Posted by NPV

It's a sport, one team wins and the other loses. This had to happen one day and it did, I think this sums it up for all India fans.
Source: WhatsApp University
Attachment 2223355

I watched Manchester United getting slaughtered by Liverpool. What did I watch?

[rAijin_]

Voilaa.. there is a Cricket thread as well

Well, this match was simple. Who ever wins the toss, elects to field first and will have 80% winning chance. The pitch, dew favours the first bowling attack and the second batting ( chasing ).
Having said that, Pakistan deserved to win this. They played a class and patient game.
Brilliant bowling by Shaheen Afridi and other bowlers. Great batting partnership between Babar and Rizwan. They batted with patience. I remember in 15-17 overs, they knew they would win. But, they didn't play risky shots, tried to hit for a six or show off. They played calmly, took singles, hit shots only on bad balls. Shows how mature their batting and thinking are.

Although we all are disappointed since the winning streak has ended now ( no more Mauka - Mauka ), let's also appreciate the game played by Pakistan team. It's just a game

And let's not start bashing Kohli or Shami. Kohli played his best and Shami also tried his best. It's not like other bowlers ( Bumrah, Bhuvi, varun ) could do anything better.
I really hope India wins this T20 world cup for Kohli.

[CEF_Beasts]

Afghanistan’s NRR is +6.5 after scoring 190/4 in 20 overs and limiting Scotland to 60 all out in 10.2 overs!

[pandey.jai]

Originally Posted by rAijin_

And let's not start bashing Kohli or Shami. Kohli played his best and Shami also tried his best. It's not like other bowlers ( Bumrah, Bhuvi, varun ) could do anything better.
I really hope India wins this T20 world cup for Kohli.

It’s a team game - why should the cup be won for an individual?

[BHPjunkie]

The first 2 matches in the Group 2 make the NZ vs Pakistan and India vs NZ extremely important for India. India has to win and hope Pak looses. However NZ has a great bowling lineup too. They have great seamers and India did struggle against Shahin's in-swingers. Trent Boult is definitely a threat for the Indian openers.

2 teams make it through Semi's which is a fight between India, Pak and NZ, however with AFG defeating SCO by such a big margin, if they manage a upset, which is possible against NZ with their bowling line up (Rashid, Nabi and Mujeeb), the entire group opens up.

[AllisWell]

Originally Posted by pandey.jai

It’s a team game - why should the cup be won for an individual?

Because the said individual has contributed a lot to the growth of Indian cricket and he deserves to sign off his T20I captaincy on a high note. It's no different than when people wished India win the 2011 world-cup for Sachin as his retirement present.

It is a team game but that doesn't mean the contribution of everyone in the team is equal. Some players contribute more and Kohli sits right at the top irrespective of what format you take.