Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra has justified India's World Cup 2019 loss by saying the Virat Kohli-led side didn't have a champion team. India was crashed out of the ICC tournament after losing to New Zealand in the Semi-Final. Rohit Sharma, Virat, and KL Rahul had failed badly in the knockout match which exposed their fragile middle-order.
Chopra tried to compare the World Cup-winning side of India from 2011 to the recent one. He found out Kohli a co. in World Cup 2019 didn't have the proper XI to emerge as the winners.
Speaking on his Youtube channel ‘Aakash Vani’, Chopra said, “If you have to choose between Tendulkar and Rohit, whom will you choose, very tough call. They may just cancel each other out because Rohit has struck 5 centuries in a World Cup edition, which no one has done. Between Rahul/Dhawan and Sehwag, my heart says to keep Sehwag ahead, but let me keep Dhawan ahead just for argument sake.”
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“Between Gambhir and Kohli, no doubt this Kohli of 2019 is definitely ahead of Gambhir of 2011. Although Kohli was there in the 2011 team as well, there is a lot of difference between that Kohli and this Kohli. Yuvraj Singh is winning this race hands down against Dinesh Karthik/Kedar Jadhav/Pant/Pandya as a batsman, as a bowler, as a full package match-winner,” he added.
“Virat Kohli of 2011, we can keep Pant/DK/Kedhar/MSD ahead of him. Raina is again a match-winner. Whom will you compare with, probably Hardik Pandya? Raina is ahead that time even if you compare him with Kedar,” he went on.
Aakash clearly stated India needed the MS Dhoni of 2011 who had way more potential than the one at the age of 38. He also found Harbhajan Singh and Ravindra Jadeja neck-to-neck as match winners.
”MSD of 2011 vs MSD of 2019, no doubt MSD of 2011. Harbhajan Singh is a match-winner, so is Jadeja, maybe 50-50. Jaddu will get more numbers for fielding, Harbhajan Singh for bowling, Jaddu slightly ahead in batting in international ODI stage,” he further said.
”Let us cancel out Zaheer and Bumrah, they are at par as bowlers almost, both are match-winners. Shami slightly ahead of Munaf. You will have to keep Nehra ahead of Kuldeep or Chahal,” Chopra said.
“So if you see the full comparison, MSD’s team of 2011 has won. That is why, if there is a match Dhoni’s team is stronger and a match-winning team,” the former India batsman concluded.
In conclusion, Chopra said the team had a lot to work on before entering the World Cup tournament and they failed to fill the gaps which ended up costing them big.
“Should we get a slight perspective, if you have not won the World Cup in 2019, probably you didn’t have a World Cup-winning team only. Because the middle-order was so brittle, you didn’t have the team to win. You should have played Shami and you didn’t play him. You didn’t prepare the team and Shikhar Dhawan got injured as well.”
“So if you consider everything, the 2011 team was a lot ahead of this team that played in 2019. Therefore the trophy is with the 2011 team and not the 2019 team,” he signed off.
