Team India faced another knockout-stage exit in the ICC tournament as they bowed out of the ongoing T20 World Cup with a 10-wicket thrashing against England in the semi-final at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday (November 10).
After the embarrassing ouster, Rohit Sharma and his men are drawing flak from the fans, media and experts alike.
Amid the backlash, batting legend Sachin Tendulkar has come out in support of the Men in Blue, saying that the team cannot be judged solely on the basis of one result.
“It was a tough game for us, 170 for no loss….that’s a bad defeat. Rather disappointing,” Tendulkar said in a recent video to ANI. “But also, let’s not judge our team only by this performance because we have been world number one T20 side as well. To get to that number one spot, it does not happen overnight. You have to play good cricket over a period of time and that is what the team has done.”
He added, “By no means I’m trying to say that these performances are okay, players also did not want to go out and fail. But every day it doesn’t happen. In sport, these ups and downs are there. It cannot be that victory is ours and losses are theirs. We have to be in it together.”
In the semi-final, India posted 168/6 in their allotted 20 overs on the back of half-centuries from Hardik Pandya (63 off 33 balls) and Virat Kohli (50 off 40 balls).
In reply, England openers Alex Hales (86* off 47 balls) and Jos Buttler (80* off 49 balls) made light work of India’s total with a whirlwind display. They took their team over the line with four overs to spare.
According to Tendulkar, the total set by India was never good enough to defend in Adelaide, where side boundaries are quite short.
“168 at the Adelaide Oval wasn’t a great total because the dimensions of the ground are completely different,” he said. “Side boundaries are really really short. Maybe 190 or around that would’ve been a good total. 168 at Adelaide is equivalent to 150 or so on any other ground and to me that is not a competitive total. Let’s accept that we did not put up a good total on the board. So was the case with our bowling, when it came to picking wickets we were unsuccessful.”
