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Rediff.com  » Sports » Is Team India taking the World T20 lightly?

Is Team India taking the World T20 lightly?

By Harish Kotian in London
June 14, 2009 00:25 IST
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They say practice makes one perfect. But does Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his boys believe in the age old adage?

How else can they justify cancelling a practice session a day after being thrashed by the West Indies, and on the eve of Sunday's must-win Super Eights match against England.

When quizzed about the same by Indian media on Saturday, vice-captain Yuvraj Singh got a bit annoyed, and replied: "Our practice sessions go according to our thoughts and not to your thoughts. We need to understand what our team is about and how we take up practice."

In fact, the full team has not had a single practice session together, every session being optional and quite a few players missing.

Yuvraj went on to explain that the players are not sitting idle in their rooms.

"If you are not coming for practice that does not mean we are not serious about the game. Some boys are hitting the gym and some will be going out for a coffee to relax. We are very confident as a group," he informed.

Even captain Dhoni had defended not having the full squad together for practice. He believes that one or two days of nets will not make the players any better.

"It is very important for players to judge what they really need… and if you see our players, like Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma, even if they field one more day they won't field better than that or somebody like Zaheer [Khan]; they can't do better in a couple or five days' fielding," he had said on Friday.

By this reasoning it makes one wonder why legends like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, or Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar for that matter, would spend hours at the nets trying to hone their skills and get better.

In Friday's match, it was clear that Indian batsmen were found wanting against short deliveries from the West Indies fast bowlers, and England will surely adopt the same tactics. 

But the team did not lose any sleep on that and preferred to skip practice when the best route forward would have been a session or two for the opening batsmen against short deliveries.

What is shocking is that this same bunch of players would giving their hearts out at practice sessions during the Indian Premier League, and without any complaining. The mood in the practice sessions, sometimes, resembled more intense and gruelling than an international match, but here, in England, it seems the players are just going through the motions.

You could be forgiven for asking whether Team India is taking the ICC World Twenty20 seriously.

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Harish Kotian in London

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